Bob Stephens
New member
Hi Gang! A number of people have expressed interest in seeing how the Fisher 1270 works. It's my pleasure to bring you a series of impressions based on different personal hunts with this little known and sometimes controversial machine. People either love it or hate it. I'll keep you posted on my findings as I gain more experience and hours on this machine. My first full hunt today was a positive experience and reinforced the feeling that all the research was not in vain and my decision to go with Fisher's high end relic machine was a sound one. I took the 1270 to a heavily hunted and heavily used park that Louise and I have hunted often and usually find one curio of some type during the course of each hunt. I know others hunt there as we've talked to a few hunters we've seen from time to time.
I set the 1270 up to run in its standard "Discrimination" mode and set the SENS to 2.5 and the DISC to 3. I didn't change those settings at all during the three hours that I hunted. I fitted the machine out with the 5" saucer coil.
The 1270 goes DEEP even at the low SENS setting. I dug iron and aluminum trash items at depths anywhere from 1" to 7" and target sizes ranged from tiny slivers of iron junk at depths of 1" to a large concrete spiral nail down at 5". I dug a number of small nails at depths of 5 to 7" as well as baling wire, bits of barbed wire, penlight batteries, small wads of foil, a copper or steel button, bottle caps, pulltabs, a length of wound steel electric cable sheathing, small pieces of copper electrical wire, S cup hooks, some pennies and dimes (it hits hard on dimes especially as I found four deeply buried 70's and 80's vintage dimes that have been overlooked by everyone, me included). Of course, the find of the day was the little pendant that I posted a shot of in the Daily section of the forum.
It was not at all umcommon to find 2 or 3 pieces of small metal in just one hole. Most times they were all bits of iron trash but that won't always be the case with multiple targets. One hole I opened to a strong signal turned out to be a loop of bailing wire but under that, I got another signal that turned out to be a dime. Another signal turned out to be a nail but this hole was a classic example of target masking in action. The loop of wire probably would have hid the dime but digging it uncovered the coin below. I wonder how the detector would have processed the signal if I was running higher DISC. Would it have "seen" the coin through the iron wire loop? It will be interesting to see how it responds at higher DISC settings in future experiments with multiple targeted holes.
The 1270 proved itself to be both SENSITIVE and DEEP during my 3 hour hunt. It finds tiny pieces of metal and hits them with a clear and audible sound and a number of nails I dug were both small and down in the 4.5" to 6" range. It signaled on tiny bits of chewing gum foil and there was no mistaking the presence of something under the coil.
This machine should be a killer on the beach when you're looking for small pieces of jewellery such as earrings, pendants, charms, etc. As a general park hunting machine, it's a good metal locator and should have no problem finding deep targets but be prepared to dig a lot of junk and small junk I might add. That's OK in my books though. The only reason I didn't find more good targets today was because there weren't any under my coil. If there's any type of metal under the 1270's loop, it will let you know for sure.
I can't wait to test it out further in parks, on my local beaches and in construction areas where they've scraped off the topsoil layers. I would like to approach and get permission from local farmers to hunt their fields once the crops come off. This machine would be a good hunter in ploughed fields due to its sensitivity and depth. I know of a number of park sites that are loaded with iron trash and I can't wait to get into those areas and do a comprehensive "beep and dig".
I'm hunting in the DISC mode to establish how the machine performs and later, I'll be experimenting with the IRON DISC and ALL METAL modes as well.
All in all, my initial impressions of the 1270 are it's a great machine and I'm happy to add this to my stable of detectors. More to come later.
Best Regards and Happy Hunting to all.
Bob and Louise Stephens. Hamilton, Canada.