Did not get any help on T-2 Forum. Can you guys help?

[Prospector]

I am thinking about buying a new T-2 and would like some expert opinions. Since the T-2 & F75 are both First Texas products, I was hoping you can help me out. I have used all the x-terras, sovereigns and white xlt. All have their good points. I am not an expert when it comes to metal detectors, but not a newbie either. What I would like to know is how the T-2 stacks up against the detectors I have listed as far as for depth, target separation, etc. If you have used any of the above models and the T-2, I would like to hear from you. I have heard that the T-2 is a good detector from some, and others seem to think that they are cheaply made. Pros and cons are welcome. Thanks in advance.

 

[snh]

.....so I can answer any question you have accept will you like the T2......can't answer that one.

First off it depends on what type of detecting you are doing and in what environments...soil...trash levels...are you after deep relics in hunted out fields of Virginia...or cellar hole hunting in NH...or coin hunting the parks of Mo........all depends as to how it would work compared to the others listed.

However as a first level comparison the T2 has extremely quick target seperation and actually the fastest there is accept the F75. I have used and onwed every top end unit and almost all mid level units and I can say for fact...it is the fastest by far.

On the flip side it was most sensitive to interference from local sources have ever seen and that was with all 3 I owned.....not that it was so bad you could not use it but it could be a challenge in some locations. I can't say it happened more close to town verses out of town as it varied....just something to be aware of....and it seems to affect some more than others. Just remember you can change the frequency to reduce the effect which will help greatly.

Also it is far more sensitive to small targets than any other top end machine going. This can be good...and can be bad. Many times when people thought the machine was falsing it was actually picking up very small pieces of iron that would not set off other units...took me a while to figure that out....as none of my other machines would hit on fly poop size pieces of iron or even bits of tin. Not a bad thing but you need to be aware as it would mislead some to think it was falsing.

Depth is as good as any top end machine....it is deeper than both the XLT and Sovereign by far if it is set up correctly and running stable. The only machines that can keep up with it for depth are the Explorer's and the Nautilus both of which I owned and actually used the Nautilus IIB along with the T2 and F75 for 2 years....great combo set up. There were taregts the T2 and 75 wsould hit that even the Nautilus could not hit in disc...and I can run a Nautilus....love that machine...but the T2 could hit silver deeper. As for the Explorers, the T2 and 75 never lost in actual field use and to be honest I could easily tell deep silver easier and faster and more accurately than most people with Explorers...and that is with friends who use nothing but Explorers. Not saying the T2 is deeper.....rather as deep but easier and quicker to interpret deep good targets from deep trash.......overall depth was the same......exception being small brass like cuff buttons...the T2 was quite a bit deeper...but silver....ahhh about a tie.

I loved the Xterra 50....hated the 70. Thought the y were both just as deep but the 50 was a better value. The T2 again has a better target seperation rate and faster recovery speed. Although I used the 50 in iron trash and it did just fine...I picked out a 1690's William and Mary farthing that was right up against a broken plow end that i missed with the T2 and 75. Also there is one crazy thing that I found with the Xterras. I had this field in Maine that was a militia site from the Rev and 1812 wars. I pounded the heck out of it with all the machines listed save the XLT. I know this field so well I can tell you locations of specific lumps in the ground. There are several hot spots where the targets were thick....I pounded them so hard I dug even deep whispers until all thatw as left were iron taregts.
Well dang it...I took the Xterra 50 in there expecting nothing. I took it there because I wanted to see how it responded to iron trash and deep iffy taregts. I knew the exact locations of large and small iron trash. Well I starting digging musket balls I had missed. Now I had been over these exact lumps og ground say...50 times.....with a Nautilus and T2...explorers...and dug all the non iron targets that even hinted of not being iron.....cleaned em out....dug many musket balls prior. But with the Xterra it was hitting deep musket balls that the rest would just not hit or would sound off like iron....but the Xterra was hitting em. Other than the musket balls it did not find anything else as I had pounded it hard....but for some reason it sure hammered the lead.

So the Xterr 50 is a good machine...very good ID system....has four tones....very similar to the T2 or 75 in options....just not quite as hot and not as fast of a reovery. But....you know do not assume that the fast recovery and taregt seperation is required...it sure did just fine for me. I would sure rather use the Xterra 50 for relic hunting in Maine verses the Sovereign or XLT as it would handle the variety of areas I hunt better. Also it had no interference issues that i ever ran into.

As for the XLT...well I love the XLT and it runs alot smoother than the T2 and has a better feedback system with the graphing and far more adjustments than any human needs. Still a great machine. However if I was using a machine for deep targets in a field the T2 will do quite a bit better by far. Now if I was making a compariosn for coin shooting in other environments I may prefer the XLT...like a park...or say old houses that are occupied where you have to cherry pick.....I like the smoothness of the XLT. If I was in a trashy cellar hole I would use the T2 as it has the lightning fast revoery speed for all the iron nails and trash.....although then again I would actually use a different machine completey....I like quiet stable fast revovery machines for that....actually i prefer units like the Edge or Excel...or a Tesoro Bandito Umax or even Golden Umax.

However, with all that said there are places I would use a Sovereign...like at the beach...best beach machine goin that I have used. Love the XLT for general park style detecting in the city where interference may bother the T2...so it just depends.

I don't think the T2 is a machine for everyone or even alot of people...it is twitchy at times and requires a person who understands a detector and how and why it does what it does....if not then you will just dump it. If you are willing to put up with it being twitchy at times and willing to adapt it as required it can be a great machine......but beware and don't let anyone mislead you...it has the potential to drive you batty....just depends.

If you are pursuaded to not get one the Xterra 50 is a good machine...also keep an eye out and see how the F70 does. It should have the depth of the 75 without the jumpiness (supposedly) as well as some nice features like optional sweep speed....this is really a great feature.

I would suggest you try a T2 first and see how it works in your area.
scott

 

[Prospector]

Thanks so much Scott for your time. I am really leaning to the T-2 or X-tera 50. Like most people I have jumped around trying to find the best detector for me, and right now I like the X-50, but would like to try a T-2.

 

[Prospector]

What kind of coil do you use on X-terra 50 for relics?

 

[EZrider]

snh, very well said and honest. There is a big diffrence in a machine that you will use for back yard or park hunting. Than one you will use for relic and celler holes. Well said.

 

[morelic1955]

By far, hands down, the best coil for relics is the 10.5DD 7.5 kHz coil. I have found DEEP bullets & buttons with it and the X50. But, I like my T2 also......

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Super post my friend and have to agree we all have our likes and dislikes different hunting conditions etc. but you handled the question well.
In a nutshell having used many detectors over the years I agree the T-2 at least in my area was prone to picking up interference from outside sources but all in all was a nice unit..

 

[snh]

I am not a fan off a DD unless it is required....DD's have effects on targets that concentrics don't and as such I avoid them unless the ground says otherwise. The small coils were not out then and while I tried the other frequency coil for the 50 I did not see any gain on silver ( I think the other coil for the 50 is a lower Freq......?)
So in the end I used the stock coil and it worked just great for me.
scott

 

[snh]

...great in certain applications...it will hit small silver deep but again any deep machine will get nervous when you have it pumped to hit the deep stuff...and that is any machine. Hey the Explorers twitch when you tweak em to hit deep targets...they are always playing some sort of soft Zamphir Master of the Pan flute cr@p in the background while you are detecting and you listen for the repeatable faint notes and disregard the rest of the music. Kind of the same on the T2 and 75...have to hear through the ticking of iron and ground mineral pips and learn the sound of deep faint targets....and never run any disc if you can avoid it....run 2 tones for relics and if a faint iron pip gives a squeak of a the regualr tone...dig it. If it is a strong iron hit and it squeaks hi ( a medium to shallow target) it is just rusty iron with a falsing squeak.....there is a difference...just have to learn it.
scott

 

[liquid1]

Great info and post..

 

[rob]

n/t

 

[chuck ky]

how would you set it to get deeper than the soverign. i did real well with the sovereign and have been back to almost every park that i used the soverign in. i have only been able to get 1 wheat penny. i do like the lighter weight. thanks

 

[snh]

....there may not be anything deeper to find. Many places I have hit hard with a Sovereign had nothing any deeper. To wit.....I had researched an area near my house that was a ghost town circa 1820-1880. Now the larger portion had been hunted somewhat but a smaller lost section was pure virginity. I hit it hard with a SOvereign and a DFX and also a Golden Umax...none of which are as deep as an f75 or T2...or Explorer.

Anyway i hammered this area with the three mentioned machines and dug piles of coins and buttons...it was not uncommon to come home with 5 or 6 large coppers the same in Indian heads..even a flying eagle cent and 20-30 buttons all in 3-4 hours tops.and do that most days I went for most of one summer...it was an amazing spot and all to myself. After cleaning it out I left most of it and moved on. When the T2 and 75 came out I went back in with visions of many new finds....but that never happened. Oh I found a few things mixed in trash that the others missed but never once found a deep missed coin. Nothing in this area was deeper than 7".....even after 130-160 years.

Now I know from another area...the field I mentioned in a previous post that there were many deep deep silver coins. I watched my friend dig a Pine Tree Shilling at about 11" with an Explorer and it was an iffy target...I have dug cobs in this field at 10-11" that were iffy. We hit this field hard first with DFX and Sovereigns as that was what we had at the time. When we changed machine and my friend got an Explorer and I had the T2 or 75 there were many deep targets the DFX and Sovereign just plain could not see. I know the area like my own hand and they were just too deep prior....we went over the spots many times but could not see them with the otehr units.

So, point being the T2 and 75 I know can see small silver and small brass several inches beyond a Sovereign and a DFX....but only if they are there to begin with. A field has been plowed and turned over so relics get buried deep. A park is not the same...sometimes coins get deep for sure but that depends on many factors and is not a gaurantee. There may not be anything deeper than 7-8" for the most part......coins don't dig their way down obviously there has to be a mechanical factor that drives em in the soil.....hence the 1800's ghost town....it sat abandoned for over 100 years and untouched and so the only factor that caused coins to be buried was some natural topsoil growth from decaying leaves for 120 years and some minor movement due to frost and such...but honestly many coins were less than 4" deep.....probably 85% were less than 4".

So maybe there is nothing deep. Now to answer your question as to how to make the T2 or 75 deep....it is naturally deep. Run it at very minimal disc...I run 0 discrimintion almost 100% evereyhwere I hunt.....and at even moderate gain levels it will hit deep.....but you need to listen for the deep ones. Toomany people are waiting for a nice coin ID and it ain't going to happen. It is a little squeak....small and soft but very repeatable.....sweep in short tight sweeps over a deep target and build up the eddy currents in the taregt and try and get the signal to build a bit.
A 1 reale cob at 10-11" is not a screamer....many people would pass right over it even with a pumped F75....I would say 80% of 75 users would miss it and pass it off as a deep iron pip...but there is a difference.

Silver at this size and depth is out of the range of a Sovereign and it would not even make a threshold change much less initiate a tone...... on the T2/75 it will make a repeatabe hit but most definately NOT one that is obvious like the same coin would make at 8"....it would be faint...bounce between an iron pip and a good target maybe 50% of the time....again why many would pass it up even with a 75 in hand.
scott

 

[liquid1]

Scott when you had the F75 which tone did you use most finding the deeper targets..I have been using the 75 for 3 months and keep
learning gobs about the machine with every hunt..thanks in advance..

 

[snh]

I can tell you fer sher....the two tone mode was deepest....and I think everyone else found that out.

Now forgive me if I forget exact tone options as they changed with software revs but the 4 tone ID was about 1" less in depth and that was proven in the field.
I would find deep faint targets in dual tone and then swap to multi tone and faint targets would disspear completely in the 4 tone mode. Now this was not true in the three tone mode that I saw.
For relic hunting I used the 2 tone mode almost exclusively..it had better depth and was not as annoying as multi tone was...I say that as in multi tone mode deep targets tend to bounce in tones and since all we care in relic is..is it iron or not and if not dig it....I don't care about trying to determine if it is silver or zinc...so two tone was optimal.
Multi mode I used in places where I had to be more finicky about digging..like grass greens or parks and so on.
I also run 0 discrimination....now with that said there is a difference between the T2 and F75 at 0 disc. The t2 would accept ground at 0 disc I think and iron started at like what 10.....so when I say 0 disc I mean I accept iron. Now on the 75 it did not allow the disc to go below iron so there I set it at 0....eliminating iron reduces depth and many deep good targets will first show up as an iron pip...only when you sweep short tight sweeps will they start to jump up out of iron...if they do it at all.
The t2 and 75 will detect good targets deeper than they can ID them at all.....with these deep deep targets they will just be an iron pip. I am talking deep deep...like a dime below 10"...say 11" or so...even 12"....it will give an iron pip only but it will see it. Thatw as how I dug that freaky deep cob...it just gave a iron pip...but it was in an area that had yielded more relics than iron and it was all alone...so I kicked off some grasss sod and swept it again and i would just get a good tone in dual tone mode about once very 2nd or 3rd sweep at best....turned out to be way down there (1 reale cob). I took a good 10" deep solid relic shovel plug and it was still down in the hole and below the bottom soil.....I try and dig an 8" wide by 10" deep plug in one shot with my Lesche so when I put the plug back the grass won't die (grass hay field).
scott

 

[liquid1]

Great info..I'll give it a shot with my next relic hunt in the works..I gotta make time to comb the 200 acres of farmland and 4 old home sites
I want to hunt as Deep as the F75 will go..Might be some cannon Balls and possible slave tags out there..and old coins..I just used up my
second set of Batts i have lots to learn and try..thanks james