Does the 10" coil make much difference in depth compared to 8" on Minelab??

[makahaman]

Hi I was wodering if the 10" coil on the Minelab Excalibur goes alot deeper than the 8" coil? I was just curious because I used to have an old Garrett Sea Hunter PI with the 12" loop and it couldn't find small items for crap!! Does the 10" loop make much difference in depth? How deep can I expect to find coins and jewelry? Is this coil good for the purpose of diving? I do alot of underwater diving and will be mostly using it for that purpose so was wondering if it is worth getting the 10" loop? I am getting a little tired of digging small rubbish items, does this machine still null out junk items if the discrimination is very low? Thanks for all of your help and hope to hear your wonderful comments!! Aloha

 

[Azheet M'Drours]

1) 10" coil on the Minelab Excalibur goes alot deeper than the 8" coil? In most conditions, it does go deeper, but you can run a 8" coil a little hotter in sensitivity.

2) How deep can I expect to find coins and jewelry? In wet sand, you can get 14-16" on a quarter or large gold, but... again there are variables such as the mineral content of the sand you are searching

3) Is this coil good for the purpose of diving? I prefer the 8" for diving because it allows you to get into tight places that the 10" coil just won't fit in

4) does this machine still null out junk items if the discrimination is very low? The Excal is phenomenal at nulling out junk and when you learn the sounds, you get better and better at identifying what you are digging

5) Does the 10" loop make much difference in depth? Expect to lose 2 - 4" with a 8" coil

HH

AM

 

[bdahunter]

I Agree! You might get a little deeper depending on settings, conditions and hunting technique(18" -22" depending on the target) but otherwise a bang on assessment of the Excal.

Cheers,

BDA

 

[Boston Bob]

n/t

 

[mattockman]

This is weird to me. I wonder if there is something wrong with my excal. 800....I usaully bring to the beach with me the Explorer XS and the Excal. 800. I will take the Excal for a walk and not get much for targets......then I swap for the Ex.XS and I get targets.....granted they are deep and some iffy sounding but it seams to go deeper than the excal....the excal is very stable while the Ex. XS can be a bit unstable.....depending on my sens. and gain settings....I run excal as hot as possible....sens. at 10:30 to 11 I just get better results with the Ex.XS......I remember first getting the Excal and it seemed to be very deep.....I bend the handle on scoop digging deep targets.....Now I can't remember ever digging that deep in a long time....I just think it is cause it is sanded in......but maybe there is something wrong with the excal......It just makes me wonder.....I feel like sending them both in fer a tune up and cleaning.......since it is winter and all.....I just want the old excal acting like it use to.....or maybe its the beach....not sure. I just know I miss the mono tone of gold. There are no other symptoms that there is anything wrong with it.

 

[Old California]

Chances are your Explorer always detected deeper but you never really noticed this until recently, By all means the Explorer should detect deeper than your Excalibur with the 8" coil.

Try using all-metal, You'll gain a slight edge on depth, Not by much but it should detect deeper.

HH, Paul (Ca)

 

[Old California]

Yes, The 10" coil for the Excalibur will detect deeper over the 8" coil. However, I would stay with the 8" if you're more into diving. Less drag and less fatigue with the smaller 8" coil.

On the old Garrett Sea Hunter PI with the 12" loop, These older Pi's are not designed to get small gold jewelry and are more designed to accept the harsh ocean mineralization/salt conditions and designed to operate at extreme depths.

The Excalibur discrimination when set low will discriminate trash and small gold jewelry falling in the same range as small pieces of trash, If you're after gold jewelry don't discriminate too much.

Hope you find a gold bar

Paul (Ca)

 

[Uptomyneck]

The truth based on actual testing is that the 10 inch coil gives slightly more depth than the 8 inch but at a cost. The 8 inch has much better target seperation and can be run with more senssitivity. If you hunt trashy areas the 8 inch has the advantage and will produce more gold targets. It will have an insignificant depth disadvantage.

Do not expect to get a response from a target deeper than 10 inches unless it has been undisturbed for many years. New rings will respond to 9 or 10 inches max, no more. If anyone tells you otherwise they have not performed actual tests and are only estimating depth. Depths can appear much deeper than they actually are.

 

[mattockman]

All metal .meaning pinpoint?.....I bought the book by Clyve and I really didn't get anything out of it....it told me things I already knew or it talked french....I do not speak french.....I once tried hunting in pinpoint and didn't do me any good....hunting fresh water lake.....it was fun but...I loved the excal when I first bought it but for some reason now I could sell it.......but I won't do that quite yet.....

 

[Arkie John]

...follow through on the check up. Regardless of what you swing, one must have confidence in his arsenal! The more complicated these machines become, the more likely I would be to send them in periodically just to keep them in peak performance.

I expect to have my new excal II within a couple of weeks. I once had an explorer XS and just loved it, once I learned it's R2D2 language.

In the meantime, I would put it through the riggors with an extensive bench test.

aj

 

[TNBob]

Personally I think the Excal 2 with a 10 inch coil is deeper in discrimination mode than with pinpoint. When I hit deep targets and discriminate I can hear them much better with discrim than with the pinpoint mode. Pinpoint is easier to find but harder to hear, plus you miss out on the tones to ID something. Just my experience so far with the new Excal 2.

 

[bdahunter]

My Excal one is significantly deeper in in Dusc than in pinpoint, I'm losing at least 4" in depth by running in pinpoint. I don't know why this is because it is certainly the reverse with other surf pirates. I've done my tests in the field though and pinpoint is a blank on faint targets and even some good ones that I picked up when in Disc mode.

Cheers,

BDA

 

[RickfromSoCal]

I used the 8" hip mounted Excal in a silver coin competition hunt a couple of years ago and cleaned up on dimes on edge. The hits came quickly in pin point and the bits of wire in the hunt field gave the tell tale echo w/o needing to quickly check for tone in disc. Produced better there than the 10" or Wot.(sharpness of the hits on edge coins) But, be cautious you don't sweep faster that the resposnse capability of this machine. This is not your typical speedy vlf. At the beach, for me, the 8" seems to hear the small gold more cleanly than the 10", but most of the time I'm swinging the Wot for max depth and coverage on the wet flats. I did the fish line and gold ring depth check for the Wot in wet, dense packed, medium mineralized beach sand and got faint hits on a 12 gram, size 10, 14 kt band at 19" w/wot in pin point. That's finger tip to elbow. (Sens. on max) At this depth the disc. was not coming up in a recognizable consistent sound past the background variable tones. The very deep threshold faint bumps in pinpoint, I'll dig, if the corresponding disc. response stays steady and does not go decidedly towards the silent null. You can apply this with any of the coils. I am using the Excal II w/Wot and 10" now. I'll do a side by side this weekend to compare my old machine and new. I'm still getting used to the new headphone sound though. The yellow headphone set seemed somewhat muted at first, with the sounds colored a little different than the blue/grey headphones. After a couple of weeks, my ears seem to be coming around to getting the faint sounds out of the new set up for now.

Rick