Critter, the 12x10 SEF is a keeper

[Ism]

I went out to a school where I found a couple silvers this year with the Sovereign GT using the stock coil. I covered the same area with the SEF. While its entirely possible I simply missed these coins, they made me a believer in this coil's potential.
It takes a substantial improvement in performance to impress me. At first glance I didn't see what the hype was all about. It didn't seem to get better depth or VDI in my coin-lab than the 10" tornado coil. While I was able to crank my sensitivity to max without chatter, the signal wasn't significantly better than at the 11 o'clock position.

The grass at the school is anywhere from 2" to 4" and pretty dense. I slid the coil across the surface of the grass as I usually do and got a high signal. It was quite a sizable footprint but the VDI numbers rose into the 177-179 region. I cut a plug about 5" deep and checked the hole...nothing.
I removed a little more and got a signal using the Sidekick. I removed the soil from the bottom of the hole carefully so not to damage the object as I expected a quarter and hoped it would be silver. In the bottom of an 8" hole appeared a 1960 Rosie lying flat. This is the deepest dime Ive dug with the GT.

While the coin footprint is large, there does seem to be better target separation and VDI seems to be accurate on deeper targets. I don't plan on putting the 10" tornado back on my GT anytime soon and may dig into my wallet for the larger SEF coil to use in farm fields (while they are on sale).
HH
Ran

 

[GunnarMN]

critter great find , , my problem is when i dig down 8 " out comes a nail ha ha

 

[Ism]

Gunnar, Please dont make me remember all the nails I dug....grin

 

[Critterhunter]

Great job. Deepest silver I've dug thus far with it was a dime at about 9". Dug wheats 8 or 9" too. That may not sound too fantastic, but I'm talking in somewhat mineralized soil that no machine I ever owned was able to get past about 7.5" on a dime. I feel these 12x10 SEF coils ride on a smaller "view" of the ground matrix than even the stock 10" coil due to their super tight left/right width of the detection field, and so are less prone to washing out target signals in the ground matrix...And can run at higher sensitivity levels without chatter. Keep in mind that less girth to the width of the signal is perfectly fine, because there is still a detection line running from tip to tail of the coil, so in reality as you sweep left and right you're still covering as much ground as another other DD or concentric.

By the way, some of those 8 or 9" coins hit so hard that I'm confident they could have been deeper and I would still have got them. I just haven't hunted enough spots yet with deep coin potential (meaning good soil that allows coins to sink real deep and enough age to the site) to see just how deep this 12x10 can get. I may have the chance in about an hour, because I'm heading to a park I never hunted before to meet a friend who just dug a barber dime and merc about 8 or 9" deep with his Etrac.

 

[Critterhunter]

Also, if you want to sniff between targets that you think might have a coin in there wiggle the tip (about the last 3 or 4" of the coil) at them. The signal gets even sharper left/right wise towards the tip and tail of the coil.

 

[Critterhunter]

And you better post more reports on the stability, depth, and seperation of this coil as you use it more. Look forward to your reports, as well as those of others who should be getting their 12x10 from Kellyco any time now.

One question...Have you noticed that the audio seems sharper or crisper on targets? I swear it sounds like the pitch of the tones is higher now compared to the stock coil. Also, to me the machine feels speeded up with faster reaction between targets due to the sharp detection field.

 

[Critterhunter]

Also, I did a test one day. Buried a silver dime. Set the sensitivity at 3PM. The stock 10" Tornado couldn't hear the coin. Didn't touch the sensitivity and put the 12x10 on and it could hear the dime no problem. That tells me that it appears it's deeper even with the same sensitivity setting, and since I can often run the 12x10 at higher sensitivity settings (many times full blast) where I know the 10" coil couldn't at the same site, by nature of that alone I would figure the 12x10 is getting deeper. I have dug wheats with the SEF in dry conditions deeper (say 8 or 9") than I could there (mineralization) with the stock coil. I have, though, dug my two deepest coins yet (about 11") with the stock coil so far, but that was in very wet conditions that I'm sure helped.

If you read the experts in the Explorer/Etrac forums many of them say that coins often don't give real good responses past 8". While I'm sure others have had great coin signals deeper than that, often that is dependent on what kind of soil it is. For me anything 8" or deeper is very impressive at many of my sites (the ones that are somewhat mineralized), because all the machines I've owned couldn't break the 7.5" barrier until I got the GT. Well, the Explorer got a little deeper. Perhaps 8", than my other machines...But I'm finding the GT is the deepest machine I've owned yet.

 

[Ism]

And you better post more reports on the stability, depth, and seperation of this coil as you use it more. Look forward to your reports, as well as those of others who should be getting their 12x10 from Kellyco any time now.

One question...Have you noticed that the audio seems sharper or crisper on targets? I swear it sounds like the pitch of the tones is higher now compared to the stock coil. Also, to me the machine feels speeded up with faster reaction between targets due to the sharp detection field.

I've only had 2 days with it. I don't know that its sharper but it certainly has a huge footprint on a coin, especially one near the surface. It also seems mellower with a surface coin than the stock coil.
I can't get within 3 ft of a cyclone fence or it goes crazy. Hugely sensitive on the coil edge. close surface coins <4" only have to be near the coil to give a good enough signal to recheck

As for isolation, it seems better than the stock coil even with the large footprint. I haven't tried the tip of the coil as I never use that method.

 

[Critterhunter]

I don't plan on putting the 10" tornado back on my GT anytime soon and may dig into my wallet for the larger SEF coil to use in farm fields (while they are on sale).
HH
Ran

I've never put my 10" Tornado on again except for doing tests of it to the 12x10. I've thought about trading the 10" coil for an 8" coil because I've heard good things about their depth while still having excellent separation abilities. Some I've read prefer using an 8" (really I think they are 7 & 1/4" ) over the S-5 because they still retain excellent separation but are achieving some oustanding depths. Think I've read of guys getting 12" on a coin with one of those coils. I'm sure that is in good ground. On the other hand, I've read of a few who get more depth with their 8" coil than the 10" coil due to mineralization...As the smaller coil soaks in less ground matrix "stew" and is able to pull coin IDs out of targets without it being washed out from the ground minerals. That's part of the reason why I think the 12x10 appears to get deeper than the 10" coil in my soil...In that it has such a tight left/right detection field that it is riding on and soaking in less ground signal.

I had the 15x12 and it is lighter than the 10" coil if you remove the coil cover (weighed them). It did not appear to get deeper than the 12x10 or stock coil on land for me on coin sized targets. Seemed to max out at about 8 or 9". The only thing I can figure is it was seeing too much ground signal. For that reason it also seemed to get it's best depth at around 1:30 to 3PM, even though higher sensitivity settings were possible. I tested this on deep targets and it seemed like too high of a sensitivity setting would start to degrade the target ID and audio. Lighting up too much ground I guess. I did, however, find that it got better depth than stock in the sand. Now, if you have land that is low in mineral content I would bet that that coil would prefer to run at max sensitivity settings, and as a result would also get better depth than stock. I loved it's coverage on the beach and in wide open areas like fields. Didn't have to hold back your steps as much while you walked as it covered more ground. On the other hand, the 12x10 is still a nice improvement over stock for ground coverage.

The only reason why I keep the stock 10" coil is because I keep it on my water rig (the original GT shaft hardware & arm cup...though I did replace the hand grip on it with a bike end bar and nice rubber grip...never liked the feel or angle of the stock hand grip). It makes it easy to simply throw the control box in the Minelab hip/chest mount bag with a plastic bag around it and off I go waiding in the water.

 

[Critterhunter]

I've been surfing the forums as I'm prone to do, keeping tabs on the abilities of other detectors. So far nobody has come out with anything that looks like it will touch a Sovereign in terms of depth and ability to handle rough ground.

Anyway, back to my point...The V3 crowd and even the MXT/M6 crowd appear to be having issues with the 12x10 in terms of things like stability, EMI issues, not being able to run the sensitivity as high, pinpointing (read of MXT/M6 guys complaining it pinpoints off to the side), and so on. I've read various complaints like this over the last year or two in those forums just to see how these coils were performing for those guys.

In particular, I just was reading in the V3 forum about the instability of these coils and other problems they are having. Sounds like an issue with being "V-Rated", because Whites does a strange thing where they make two seemingly exact same coils but one is V-Rated and one is not, meaning one is designed to meet V3 specs while the others are meant for the M6 or MXT. Seems kind of odd that they would do that. Why not just make one coil with those quality standards for all of them, because the way I understand it you can use a V-Rated coil on the M6 or MXT.

Either way, I get the feeling the V3 is much more picky about the coil it is using than your typical detector and so they are having some major issues with the SEF coils. Heard one guy say they just aren't quality coils. I guess that's based of those issues they are having, because I'd have to say both the 15x12 I owned and the 12x10 I own now are some of the highest quality coils I've ever used. Stability, tolerance of EMI, and so on. Well constructed coils. The only issue I had with them in terms of quality was that the coil cable nut wasn't secured tightly, but I hear they do that so they don't have a problem in shipping. I put some shoe goo on the threads to seal things better, hand tightened it, and then used a wrench to turn it just a hair tighter.

I'm just glad there don't appear to be these kinds of instability and other issues with these SEF coils on the Minelabs. One less thing to worry about, and a great upgrade that will put a smile on your face in various respects.

 

[Critterhunter]

Hey Ism, or anybody else who recently got a 12x10...How about an update on your experience with the coil so far....Separation, depth, stability (are you finding you can run at higher sensitivity settings at some sites than stock coil like me?), crispness of the tones, and so on. Love reading about the feelings and experience other people are having with various coils and such.

 

[Ism]

Critter, I havent been out lately. Rain and home improvment projects have been getting in the way.
However I can definatly increase sensitivity higher than the 10" tornado in noisy areas.

 

[Critterhunter]

Great. Keep the updates coming!

 

[Critterhunter]

Dug this blurb out of another forum about the 12x10 on the Sovereign...

I still use my old trusty sovereign xs the sef 10x12 coil truly enhanced that old unit.

That's the way I feel. I swear (I know it's not true) that the 12x10 makes it feel like the processor on the GT has been sped up thanks to the faster reaction between targets with the ultra sharp detection field it generates in the left/right perspective.

Anybody else get a 12x10 from Kellyco that they've been waiting on and care to share your experiences thus far with it?