Etrac and nuggets and beaches

[grumpy]

Morning ;
We have used Minelab for years then got away from them when the E trac came across and are just now getting back to the Etrac for a try. I have a couple of questions since our last exp. was the SE pro and some things have or might have changed.
For starters is the E trac any good as a nugget shooter? we live in the nice dry dirty desert and that seems to be a concern to some friends.
Second we go to the beach to hunt the sand on occasion and dont see much mentioned if the Etrac is a good machine for this type hunting ??
Thanks for your help
Grumpy

 

[Bill - De]

I recently bought an Etrac, and also a Sovereign GT, and have had them both out on the beach. Hunted the dry and wet sand to edge of surf, and they both ran smooth, without problems from the wet salt. I only spent about an hour with the E, and 2 with the GT. I found targets with both. Of course the E will do extremely well on dry sand, for coins and jewelry, but I don't know how well it will do on very small gold, or gold chains. I will try that when the weather cooperates.

Regarding prospecting, the Etrac isn't the first detector I think of for that, but if someone put a little SunRay X5 coil on it, it just may work well enough for that too. What you might consider, depending on how much of fresh water beaches, salt water, and prospecting you will be doing, is either buying a Garrett AT-Gold, and use it for all your hunts, OR, get a Sovereign GT. The Sovereign is the same detector at the Minelab Excal, except it is not a waterproof machine. Many folks are using them for land-based hunts and in up to waist-deep water, by chest-mounting the control box.

 

[stasys]

if you had explorer,you cant expect somethuing more from Etrac, its very simmilar or the same, just with discrimination works faster. For nugets doubt, but if nugets bigger size and coil smaller its will work.

 

[Johnnyanglo]

**** For starters is the E trac any good as a nugget shooter? ****

Nope. It is dead to most small, poor conductors.

Tiny or smallish, thin gold jewelry, pendants, earrings, trinkets, very thin rings are all invisible to an E-Trac. Most ladies rings will register just barely in the foil range (01-03Co) while thicker men's rings will be anywhere from 04Co to 47Co depending upon the composition and design.

Rings normally fall along the 12Fe line +/- 2. However, the higher conductive silver rings that fall above about 44Co will often be found in the low Fe numbers 01-11Fe (upper-right screen corner - silver).

Increased soil mineral concentration and/or more nearby iron targets factored against target depth will cause an increased skew to the numbers. Deeper targets and greater iron concentrations work to cause more erratic Fe values with up-averaging toward the high Fe values, especially if deep. Since rings are found all along the Co scale from 01 to 47Co, first determine if the target signal is fairly repeatable, and if so, insure the Fe values do not dive into the 30's, and if so, then dig, especially in a known ring area (beach, tot-lot).

 

[ddcarr]

Hi Grumpy, I got into metal detectors 30 years ago with a Tesoro and worked through several different White detectors. I tried a couple other kinds a few times and then ended up with a Minelab X-Terra 705 to use in the desert around Yuma, AZ. The 705 came with both the 7.5 and 18.75 kHz coils at the time I purchased it. After using the 705 and picking up a few nice pieces of gold in the highly worked areas around Yuma I purchased a used Minelab Explorer II. I spent a lot of time going over the information available on the forums and determined that the technology of the Explorer series would be great for coins in NE where I spend the summers. The 705 worked well in a local park with the 7.5 coil but the Explorer really pulled coins out of areas that I had gone over previously here in Yuma. I was able to get a deal on a Minelab E-Trac and it is pulling even more coins out of the same park. I still have lots to learn on the E-Trac but I think it will be really hard to find a metal detector that will beat it for coins once you really understand how to use it for the different conditions you will run into. I have spent many hours already studying the manual and the book by Andy Sabisch, "The Minelab Explorer & E-Trac Handbook". I think the advantage of the E-Trac over the Explorer models is the ability to fine tune the unit beyond any detector I have seen before. I can't wait to get back to NE and hit all the places with the E-Trac that I covered over the years that I stopped going to because there was nothing left to find.

So, I feel very strongly that the Minelab X-Terra 705 with the 18.75 kHz coil and the E-Trac with the standard coil and a small coil will give you a combination that will allow you to hit the desert for nuggets and the beaches and parks for coins. There are many people that will have different opinions than mine but I am extremely happy with the two detectors and have proved to myself that I made the right decisions.

Have a great day, ddcarr

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

The E-Trac does not do well on nuggets. You have to get a very specific machine for those.