Critterhunter
New member
And I'll say I'm impressed with both it's depth and it's unmasking potential, with length wise separation of course beyond that of a larger coil, but also that it's left/right separation is seems real good like the 10" Tornado.
In terms of how sharp it's DD line is compared to the 12x10, I don't get the feeling the little Tornado has as easy of left/right separation, meaning, not as "effortless" and takes a little more work to sort things out, but that's not a knock by any means because of the outstandingly sharp DD line of the 12x10.
Up until using the 12x10 to me the 10" Tornado had the best left/right separation I ever used with a stock coil on a machine I owned in a DD, so the little Tornado being compared as like it in that respect is a compliment and not a snub. I don't really see how left/right separation can get any better than the 12x10 anyway, so I wasn't expecting anything better here.
All I cared about was good left/right unmasking combined with a shorter DD line for certain masking situations where a larger coil would miss a target if the length of the DD line hit any trash surrounding it unless you approached the coin from just the right angle.
The other day I took it on a short hour plus hunt and found an old tree house that was so old that the tree had grown around the wood planks. I figured it might be loaded with nails around the tree and sure enough it was one large null in any direction.
I flipped to pin point to confirm this and then I could hear the nails all over the place as I swept. Flipping back to disc I started advancing the coil inches at a time and wasn't long before I got a solid coin hit, which would repeat from any direction as I circled it.
Flipping back to PP I could hear a web of nails surrounding this signal. Digging it up it turned out to be a copper memorial at about 2". Nothing great, but it showed me exactly the kind of situation I had intended this coil for.
If I were using the 12x10 I might have been able to see that coin, but I bet it would have taken several different angles of gridding the site before I missed all the nails with the length of the DD line to hear that coin with just the right angle.
Then a couple days ago a friend and I headed out to another site. I didn't hunt more than about 2 to 3 hours due to rain and sleet and a bitter wind. But I told him, since he was using another flagship silver killing machine, that if he found any deep coin hits 7" or deeper I wanted to be called over to see if this little coil would hit them.
Long story short on that 2 or 3 targets he found were in the 8 to perhaps 9"+ range and yet this little coil hit them with no problem. Even with the volume all the way down on the GT I could hear them fine and the VDI wasn't hard to work up to proper numbers, and they hit so well I bet they could have been another 2" deep and I would still have easily heard them. Maybe even deeper than that perhaps.
This I can't get over, and my friend even remarked today about that when we met up again (I wasn't using the 8" Tornado this time but it was still a topic of conversation), that he couldn't believe this tiny coil saw them fine. Maybe in other people's soils that wouldn't be a big thing, but in our soil only the 2 best non-Minelab detectors I ever owned could barely muster about 7.5" on a silver dime, and that was using a 9 or 10" coil.
I also found another interesting contrast between the two machines. I was getting a very low foil hit in the 70's. Faint but solid, and I called my friend over to see if he could hear it. Despite him using very minimal iron rejection on his machine, as compared to all the built in iron rejection on the GT, he could not hear the target. I dug it up and it turned out to be a foil ketchup packet.
Not a typical one with more foil, as this one had a good bit of plastic in it's make up by the looks of it. He remarked that he bet his Excalibur (his water machine) would have been able to hear that target because he's found the same type of packet with it, and that Excalibur by the way is using the old heavier BBS800 version of this coil.
I'm not saying this little coil will hit on fine gold or very low conductors better than any other coil, because not only are Minelabs not good at that, but also because at least when I tested other coils, big and small, on about 7 fine gold items (thin chains and tiny earrings) I don't think I saw any difference between them on that with my GT, but I need to finish editing that video to review it and see if that is correct. I had lost track as I was coil hopping with all the 7 targets I was comparing them on.
This little Tornado wasn't in that test group at the time though, so I think a little fine gold item testing is in order to see what it does on those. A foil packet proves nothing anyway, because it's the nature of thin gold chains and tiny earrings not having much *joined* surface area that makes it hard for a Minelab to hit on them, while a Minelab will bang on even super thin gold rings at great depths because they are an intact loop and present a large image to the detection field.
The 12x10 though, does seem rather good at hitting on tiny items, but in terms of fine gold I have to review that video to see if it's even marginally better on those than other coils, and should do the same test with this little coil too.
So still this only makes I think 3 very short hunts with the 8" Tornado so far, because I have been hitting sites for the most part where coverage and depth was called for with other coils and not intense amounts of trash where the 8" Tornado should show it's stuff.
Yea, it's depth looks to be pretty shocking in my soil for such a little thing this coil is, but trying to grid large areas with it it's like a fish out of water, and I feel like I'm using a sharp stick to scan the ground.
I'm calling this coil my "Plinko" coil now, because it reminds me of those Plinko chips on The Price Is Right. You might not think 7.25" in diameter is much smaller than a typical true 8" coil in size, but trust me in person it's a hockey puck. It has it's place, where trash or iron is so thick that I should be able to unmask coins without as much need to grid a site from as many different angles with a larger coil.
As good as the 12x10 is in sniffing coins out of thick junk, this "Plinko" coil has it's perks too with the shorter DD line for sure, and it's depth looks to be offering the potential to find deep coins among heavy trash that not only bigger coils might miss from the wrong angles, but also seems to have the depth *in my soil* that other small trash coils and machines might not be able to punch deep enough to see.
By the way, I was able to run at full blast sensitivity with it, but when in heavy trash I kicked down the sensitivity to about the 3PM or so position, just because I wasn't wanting depth in those situations, but hoping to lesson any "glare" nearby trash might cause to a coin hidden in there. The depth was still impressive. I dug a few targets in the 6 or 7" range with no problem, and I can't say for sure but I think a few of those were wheats.
I know some were at least copper memorials that were easy as cake with it at 6 or 7" even with the sensitivity way down just to tame the trash a bit more. Not even sure if that's something I need to do to see between the trash with it, because I don't find it necessary with the 12x10.
Will take more excursions in the field and then raising sensitivity on a badly masked coin to see if that hurts it's unmasking potential at all. I tend to doubt it will hurt it though if it's anything like the 12x10 in trash, but we'll see...
So am I happy with the short 3 hunts or so impressions of it? Yea, I like it much better than the S-5 I owned for various reasons. The little Tornado appears to be doing what I wanted, and the depth potential is just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.
It brought a smile to my face when I found that coin among all those nails, and it also brought a smile to my face when it was banging on deep targets without having to work the wiggle hard to bring up the proper ID and tone. I'm kind'a shocked by that actually, and now I even more so believe that it might have the 10 and 11" deep coin potential in my soil, that I have read others report with it in their soil.
I'm sure these coils are still in large numbers at Minelab even though it and the 10" Tornado have been discontinued. Still, even though Minelab still makes them for the continued production of the Excalibur, I doubt they'd be willing to sell one to somebody that says they'll solder their own coil plug onto it.
So, if you have been thinking about this little coil as a trash coil and for other situations, I'd order one before the stock eventually dries up sooner or later, as both coils are very hard to find used. And in particular the 8" Tornado is even more so almost impossible to find used when I was looking for one used, so I just went ahead and bit the bullet and paid for a new one.
Personally if I had an older Sovereign and wanted a large coil I'd opt for a 12x10 over the 10" Tornado for land use, but that's not to say the 10" Tornado is not the best *stock* coil I ever owned on a machine, and I prefer mine for my water rig with the GT when water hunting, because both the 15x12 and 12x10 were too much drag for my tastes in the water due to their non-round shape.
It's not that the 12x10 isn't dragging beyond belief in the water, but it's that the 10" Tornado glides through the water even more effortlessly, so it's found it's place there, where it will never find it's place on land again over my 12x10. I suspect the round more sleek shape of the S-12 is one of the the reasons why it seems very popular among Excalibur water hunters as well.
In terms of how sharp it's DD line is compared to the 12x10, I don't get the feeling the little Tornado has as easy of left/right separation, meaning, not as "effortless" and takes a little more work to sort things out, but that's not a knock by any means because of the outstandingly sharp DD line of the 12x10.
Up until using the 12x10 to me the 10" Tornado had the best left/right separation I ever used with a stock coil on a machine I owned in a DD, so the little Tornado being compared as like it in that respect is a compliment and not a snub. I don't really see how left/right separation can get any better than the 12x10 anyway, so I wasn't expecting anything better here.
All I cared about was good left/right unmasking combined with a shorter DD line for certain masking situations where a larger coil would miss a target if the length of the DD line hit any trash surrounding it unless you approached the coin from just the right angle.
The other day I took it on a short hour plus hunt and found an old tree house that was so old that the tree had grown around the wood planks. I figured it might be loaded with nails around the tree and sure enough it was one large null in any direction.
I flipped to pin point to confirm this and then I could hear the nails all over the place as I swept. Flipping back to disc I started advancing the coil inches at a time and wasn't long before I got a solid coin hit, which would repeat from any direction as I circled it.
Flipping back to PP I could hear a web of nails surrounding this signal. Digging it up it turned out to be a copper memorial at about 2". Nothing great, but it showed me exactly the kind of situation I had intended this coil for.
If I were using the 12x10 I might have been able to see that coin, but I bet it would have taken several different angles of gridding the site before I missed all the nails with the length of the DD line to hear that coin with just the right angle.
Then a couple days ago a friend and I headed out to another site. I didn't hunt more than about 2 to 3 hours due to rain and sleet and a bitter wind. But I told him, since he was using another flagship silver killing machine, that if he found any deep coin hits 7" or deeper I wanted to be called over to see if this little coil would hit them.
Long story short on that 2 or 3 targets he found were in the 8 to perhaps 9"+ range and yet this little coil hit them with no problem. Even with the volume all the way down on the GT I could hear them fine and the VDI wasn't hard to work up to proper numbers, and they hit so well I bet they could have been another 2" deep and I would still have easily heard them. Maybe even deeper than that perhaps.
This I can't get over, and my friend even remarked today about that when we met up again (I wasn't using the 8" Tornado this time but it was still a topic of conversation), that he couldn't believe this tiny coil saw them fine. Maybe in other people's soils that wouldn't be a big thing, but in our soil only the 2 best non-Minelab detectors I ever owned could barely muster about 7.5" on a silver dime, and that was using a 9 or 10" coil.
I also found another interesting contrast between the two machines. I was getting a very low foil hit in the 70's. Faint but solid, and I called my friend over to see if he could hear it. Despite him using very minimal iron rejection on his machine, as compared to all the built in iron rejection on the GT, he could not hear the target. I dug it up and it turned out to be a foil ketchup packet.
Not a typical one with more foil, as this one had a good bit of plastic in it's make up by the looks of it. He remarked that he bet his Excalibur (his water machine) would have been able to hear that target because he's found the same type of packet with it, and that Excalibur by the way is using the old heavier BBS800 version of this coil.
I'm not saying this little coil will hit on fine gold or very low conductors better than any other coil, because not only are Minelabs not good at that, but also because at least when I tested other coils, big and small, on about 7 fine gold items (thin chains and tiny earrings) I don't think I saw any difference between them on that with my GT, but I need to finish editing that video to review it and see if that is correct. I had lost track as I was coil hopping with all the 7 targets I was comparing them on.
This little Tornado wasn't in that test group at the time though, so I think a little fine gold item testing is in order to see what it does on those. A foil packet proves nothing anyway, because it's the nature of thin gold chains and tiny earrings not having much *joined* surface area that makes it hard for a Minelab to hit on them, while a Minelab will bang on even super thin gold rings at great depths because they are an intact loop and present a large image to the detection field.
The 12x10 though, does seem rather good at hitting on tiny items, but in terms of fine gold I have to review that video to see if it's even marginally better on those than other coils, and should do the same test with this little coil too.
So still this only makes I think 3 very short hunts with the 8" Tornado so far, because I have been hitting sites for the most part where coverage and depth was called for with other coils and not intense amounts of trash where the 8" Tornado should show it's stuff.
Yea, it's depth looks to be pretty shocking in my soil for such a little thing this coil is, but trying to grid large areas with it it's like a fish out of water, and I feel like I'm using a sharp stick to scan the ground.
I'm calling this coil my "Plinko" coil now, because it reminds me of those Plinko chips on The Price Is Right. You might not think 7.25" in diameter is much smaller than a typical true 8" coil in size, but trust me in person it's a hockey puck. It has it's place, where trash or iron is so thick that I should be able to unmask coins without as much need to grid a site from as many different angles with a larger coil.
As good as the 12x10 is in sniffing coins out of thick junk, this "Plinko" coil has it's perks too with the shorter DD line for sure, and it's depth looks to be offering the potential to find deep coins among heavy trash that not only bigger coils might miss from the wrong angles, but also seems to have the depth *in my soil* that other small trash coils and machines might not be able to punch deep enough to see.
By the way, I was able to run at full blast sensitivity with it, but when in heavy trash I kicked down the sensitivity to about the 3PM or so position, just because I wasn't wanting depth in those situations, but hoping to lesson any "glare" nearby trash might cause to a coin hidden in there. The depth was still impressive. I dug a few targets in the 6 or 7" range with no problem, and I can't say for sure but I think a few of those were wheats.
I know some were at least copper memorials that were easy as cake with it at 6 or 7" even with the sensitivity way down just to tame the trash a bit more. Not even sure if that's something I need to do to see between the trash with it, because I don't find it necessary with the 12x10.
Will take more excursions in the field and then raising sensitivity on a badly masked coin to see if that hurts it's unmasking potential at all. I tend to doubt it will hurt it though if it's anything like the 12x10 in trash, but we'll see...
So am I happy with the short 3 hunts or so impressions of it? Yea, I like it much better than the S-5 I owned for various reasons. The little Tornado appears to be doing what I wanted, and the depth potential is just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned.
It brought a smile to my face when I found that coin among all those nails, and it also brought a smile to my face when it was banging on deep targets without having to work the wiggle hard to bring up the proper ID and tone. I'm kind'a shocked by that actually, and now I even more so believe that it might have the 10 and 11" deep coin potential in my soil, that I have read others report with it in their soil.
I'm sure these coils are still in large numbers at Minelab even though it and the 10" Tornado have been discontinued. Still, even though Minelab still makes them for the continued production of the Excalibur, I doubt they'd be willing to sell one to somebody that says they'll solder their own coil plug onto it.
So, if you have been thinking about this little coil as a trash coil and for other situations, I'd order one before the stock eventually dries up sooner or later, as both coils are very hard to find used. And in particular the 8" Tornado is even more so almost impossible to find used when I was looking for one used, so I just went ahead and bit the bullet and paid for a new one.
Personally if I had an older Sovereign and wanted a large coil I'd opt for a 12x10 over the 10" Tornado for land use, but that's not to say the 10" Tornado is not the best *stock* coil I ever owned on a machine, and I prefer mine for my water rig with the GT when water hunting, because both the 15x12 and 12x10 were too much drag for my tastes in the water due to their non-round shape.
It's not that the 12x10 isn't dragging beyond belief in the water, but it's that the 10" Tornado glides through the water even more effortlessly, so it's found it's place there, where it will never find it's place on land again over my 12x10. I suspect the round more sleek shape of the S-12 is one of the the reasons why it seems very popular among Excalibur water hunters as well.