Bandido II micromax All Metal, Reminds me of the original Lobo.

[Old California]

Only having the Bandido II Micromax two days, Already see the advantage's it has to offer especially the All Metal feature. Reminds me of my original Lobo, great relic Detector with both All Metal and discrimination mode's.

Spent several hours today at a new site, farm land and that window of detecting it will close here shortly with planting any day now. Been using my Lobo here the past week, dug some nice iron relics and a few old conductive targets.

Today, Broke out the Bandido with the Mojave 7" coil at this site. Using All Metal with (Tune-Auto), toggle on All Metal mode, slight threshold with proper GB. Sensitivity maximum, Discrimination off. What I experienced was quite a surprise, Auto Tune Mode keeps the signal from drifting something I see with high end vlf nugget detectors. Auto Tune quickly retunes the Bandido so the threshold returns after passing a target. And if there is no target, Well the Bandido maintains a smooth threshold until a target does appear.

I've seen advantage's with using prospecting modes with my top end vlf for relic hunting, deeper and the weak signals are more clear. The Bandido is no different, reminds me of my original Lobo smooth all metal performance yet pretty darn close to the Lobo with sensitivity. Pretty sure others are using this technique, but I'll still share in case others may want to try this.

With the Bandido II micromax, When ground conditions allow. In my case with today's search, iron was present but due to a century plus of plowing iron audio is bearable it's scattered deep and wide. Set discrimination at zero, sensitivity at maximum when conditions allow. Tune toggle switch at Auto, Mode toggle at All Metal, Threshold faint. Conduct proper GB, then start searching. If conditions are right, mineralization not too harsh the Bandido maintains a smooth threshold. Once I hear a target, flip toggle from All Metal to Disc mode, scan the coil over the target. If it disappears, most likely it's iron. But if I hear any kind of target even if it's choppy, I'll kick some dirt off the target area and it'll do one of two things. Disappear (iron) or signal will increase (deep target or tiny piece of conductive). It also can be a large piece of deep iron, that's ok I dig large iron anyway many of the nicer finds at the end of a hunt are iron.

These are my Lobo relic settings out in open areas, when conditions allow All Metal is deeper. With all metal, most of the coil foot print is seeing more ground so it's penetrating deeper. Discrimination mode, only a small portion of the coil is detecting deep, so a weak deep signal can easily be missed if coil sweet spot is not directly over the target.

Below are today's finds, along with the Lobo finds from last week. The paper plate are from the Lobo, old iron, large spoon, skeleton key door knob plate. Broke in two pieces trying to straighten out. The paper napkin finds are from the Bandido II micromax, wheat penny, 1943 silver nickel, crusty nickel, super thin penny size copper size disk with a hole, Sleigh bell, power flask top, pocket watch part's and other small stuff. Nothing earth shattering, but the site has potential it was a farm back in 1880's maybe even earlier. Looks like I won't be hunting it much longer then not until crops are harvested, just found the site not more than 10 days ago from an 1892 map.

Will post a picture of the original map, The pre-1880 farm is the small dot below the number 24 about 1/2 mile from the old school. Out in the middle of farm land, was lucky to find it usually farmers level farm land reducing the odds of finding them. The owner allowed me to detect here, all finds and future finds will be his, will also give him copies of old male pertaining to his property.

Thanks for looking,
Paul

 

[Percy]

Paul'
Great hunt......you're doing fine. I like the old iron that you found. I have one that I cleaned up and have it on
a counter top. Thanks for the great report and pictures.
Percy

 

[Mega]

Some nice finds,that site looks like it has some great potential,love the 'crotal bell' have found a fair few over the years and when you clean the dirt out with a toothpick and wash away the dirt from inside the sound they give off is superb,i have a nice early one on my dogs collar.

Same as yourself the crops are in full growth,so the detecting window here is closing very fast till harvest time,but do have a fair amount of pasture acreage that will keep me going over the summer,another problem that we are having is that its not rained much for a couple of months and the ground is just like concrete and you can only get a detecting spade in a few inches.

 

[Old California]

Thank you Percy,

I've dug a lot of big iron these past few hunts, the clothes iron was a nice piece. That same night, cleaned it up trying to find a patent date but couldn't find one.

In my career, these don't surface often. But when they do, a pleasant treat to see when they surface.

Thanks again,
Paul

 

[Old California]

Thanks Mega and thank you for sharing the crotal bell information. I've only found three in my career, these are so rare in my area.

Soil conditions....Have patience, eventually you'll be detecting soft soil it happens here too we just need to wait it out.

Yes, I believe the site does have potential. Was there today for about an hour detecting carefully not to disturb the soil. Always made sure I left the soil like it was after digging out a target, any day now they will be seeding then flooding land then it's over until the next harvest.

Was using the original Lobo today, left the Bandido at home wanted to use the Lobo all metal feature. To my surprise, I'm starting to feel the Bandido II micromax all metal mode is better than the original Lobo for farm land hunting. So I hunted in discrimination mode most of today's hunt, All Metal just wasn't keeping up with the threshold due to the soil terrain. Discrimination mode with the Lobo was terrific, smooth and snappy with conductive signals. Lost some depth not using all metal but discrimination was still getting good depth, so I see both the Lobo and the Bandido II micromax have their strengths and weaknesses.

Was thinking about getting rid of the Bandido, but now I can't the All Metal feature with the Bandido II micromax is too good to let go.

Thanks Mega,