For the folks who have the Sovereign GT and Excals

[Derrelld]

I'm sure this question has been asked over again. I am debating over buying a used GT or spending the extra money for a Excal II. I only go to the beach once or twice a year. Won't be detecting over my waist in water. I do hunt woods and fields quite a bit. I hear they are both deep killers on old hous sites. I have been running my E-trac in all metal 2 tone. It has done me very well. I was wondering which machine one would recommend with the places I will take it, or if you would even recommend buying another machine and just keep hunting with what I have. I always enjoy a new toy .
Thanks for the help
Derrell

 

[deepdiger60]

It would seem logical if you just go to the beach just a few times a year and you like fields and woods a lot more get a Sov.GT it loves wet sand beaches very shallow water, and fields i use it for both, one of the best deep seeking machines out there , getting a used GT is not easy but it happens keep looking Get a S-12 coil for it and hip mount the box . Good luck Jim

 

[Nauti]

Hi Derrell,the GT is as good on the beach as the excal performance wise, the only difference being that the excal can be fully submerged.Great machine on the beach or inland....you may even prefer it to your e-trac after you get used to it.

 

[dewcon4414]

Cost wise...... stick with what you have for what you are doing. You didnt say what kind of beach..... salt or fresh water. I like the Sov.... but someone would have to show me its a better choice for you where you hunt than the ET. My SE works great on the wet and dry sand Darrel and is deeper than the Xcal for sure especially of the high conductors. The Sov can be chest mounted so its lighter and less likely to get wet...... just remember its NOT water proof either. If its salt water hunting on the wet sand and water, depends on where you go, you might look at a PI..... half the price or fresh water AT Pro. If you did it a lot..... go for the Xcal just because i believe they pay for themselves quickly and have disc. and can be swamped with no issue. BUT.... you cant change the coil, headphones or rod without getting in your pocket and doing a mod. .... even more money. The Sov has an advantage there and can be tweaked a bit. Another advantage to the Sov is you dont have to look at the screen.... allows you to shall we say take in the views ..... dont tell the girl friend i said that lol.

Dew

 

[Critterhunter]

Since you only plan to wade a few times a year then I'd get the Sovereign. It will make an excellent land and water (wading) machine.

An Excal (or a Sovereign) using the same sized coil as an Etrac or SE will get just as deep if not deeper. Comparing machines with a smaller coil to an 11" Pro Coil, for instance, is not a fair test. There was just a guy on here a month or so back saying that he's owned an Etrac since they came out and that he feels his GT is deeper, and that's not the first time I've heard that. Also, I often check signals on targets to my friends with Etracs and so far my GT with the 12x10 coil has been able to easily hear anything they have, deep or in trash. I know my GT (even using the stock 10" coil) is deeper than my Explorers ever were as well, *in my soil*.

If your interested in the gold aspect of water hunting, there is a new thread on the Excal hitting harder on gold than the FBS machines in the Etrac or Explorer forum, and that's not the first time I've heard that. For me my GT does hit harder on gold than my Explorers did, for whatever reason. I think a lot of it has to do with the better audio harmonics of the Sovereign. There's more "meat" to listen to.

 

[dewcon4414]

Darrell you are a heck of a good hunter with the Exp/ET. Critter may be correct..... IF the Sov is in the hands of someone as good as you with the Exp. Ive not used the Sov but if the Sov and Excal are the same machine depth wise i havent found it to be as deep as my Exp SE..... but im no expert. If im wet/dry sand hunting i use the SE otherwise anywhere in the water the Excal is used. Where do i find the good stuff mostly.... in the water.

Dew

 

[bootyhoundpa]

if you are keeping the e-trac the excal may be the wiser choice.....i had the gt for 2 years prior to getting a used excal....the problem is water hunting is even more addicting than land...i took chances with the gt prior to getting the excal...fortunatly i didnt have any accidents....one slip or rogue wave and you kiss $1000 bye bye.....

 

[Derrelld]

I appreciate all the comments guys!!! An older guy.. not as old as you Dew.. gave me a little advice the other day.. He said buy all your toys before you get married... lol So that's what I'm doing.. I made a decision.. You will hopefully see me posting a few finds here in a couple weeks If I find out its not for me.. Ill sell it and get something different.
Again thanks you.. You all been a big help!!
Derrell

 

[dewcon4414]

Ha ha ha...... OLD got me there. I need a cheap Sov D..... so lets hope you dont like it. I once heard ... just find a girl you dont know and give her your car and house .... its cheaper than marrage. Ive said it several times.... it takes a while to pay for a dirt machine just because most of the targets you find you tend to keep. Water machines pay for themselves quickly if you use the as much as a dirt one because you tend to sell more of the finds. Good luck D.......... looking forward to some of those finds im sure they will be impressive.

Dew

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's a quote I dug up in the Etrac forum. This is not the first time I've heard people say this about FBS machines versus the Excal/Sovereign on gold...

[I may be imagining it, but I honestly don't think the E-trac hits on ring sized gold as well as the Sovereign or Excalibur. I may give the E-Trac the nod for tiny golds items like ear ring backs, but neither is exceptionally good at very small items[/quote

 

[Critterhunter]

Another little blurb from there...

The Etrac is awesome in the sand! Found some get deep coins well over a foot deep. The excalibur is better as far as rings and gold go.

 

[Tin Fin]

I got a used Excal just in case I couldn't find a used GT - found both though. Got a Pluggers straight shaft for the Excal. I'm new to these machines, so I can't give advice on depth of targets other than; I'm digging deeper with the Excal and GT than I did with other machines earlier. I've never had a PI, so I can't say anything about those either. But, I'm getting to know both of the machines, and I'm learning something each time I use them.

I have an S-12, and plan to use that this weekend, but one of the spots has a lot of trash, so I will be using the s-5 too - haven't used either of those just yet. And the old man is right - get all your toys before getting married; and DON'T put them into a closet - USE them even after you are married!

Do shop around for used here or elsewhere though - It was expensive, but I still got a good deal on the Excal and GT via this site, and it's been worth it to me.

HH

 

[Minelab50]

I would get a GT. I use my GT for relics and it has a lot more versatility than people think. Especially in the AM mode.
Exp/ET's need adjusting for each area or beach you hunt. The good thing is the GT needs minimum adjustment and can
realize more depth to a trained ear. Yes I believe the GT is deeper than Exp/ET with experience. Here in north Florida, I and
a number of others use the stock 10" Tornado coil. It is factory tuned for the best signal process from coil to box. I have
compared the depth of the 10" Tornado to 10x12 SEF and found the 10" just as deep when detecting along side my
friends 10x12 SEF. The 10" is also very good for relics just slow down.

good diggin

Randy

 

[Critterhunter]

The good thing is the GT needs minimum adjustment and can realize more depth to a trained ear. Yes I believe the GT is deeper than Exp/ET with experience

A guy on here just about a month ago that has owned the Etrac since it first came out said the same thing and I've had a few others tell me that in PMs that didn't want to stir up a debate in the public forums. So far my friend's who have Etracs haven't hit on anything, in trash or deep, that the 12x10 on my GT couldn't easily ID correctly as well.

That's not to say that my eye hasn't wandered. I've been eyeing the SE Pro for some time. I didn't care for the 10" coils on the Explorers I owned, but I do like the Pro Coil on the SE. Don't care for some things on the Etrac (everything being compressed into the 12th line, not as good of audio as the Explorers on deep silver, etc), so if I do wander it'll be to an SE if I ever run across a good deal on one. Beyond that I don't think there is another machine on the market that would temp me, other than an AT Pro as a backup water/land machine.

In my tests I have found that with the exact same sensitivity setting (3PM) the stock coil could not hear a buried silver dime while the 12x10 did. While my deepest coins to date (11") were with the stock coil, I haven't used the 12x10 in known deep coin spots enough yet to see if it can better that. I have, however, dug wheats deeper with the 12x10 in dry conditions than I ever did with the stock coil. Since this coil also allows me to run at higher sensitivity settings than stock in the same area, I would suspect by that very fact alone (and not just the larger coil size) that it gets deeper than stock. Some say in the Explorer/Etrac forum that the 12x10 is 1 to 2" deeper than the Pro Coil.

 

[Critterhunter]

Here it is...

The title of this thread should be deep everything! I ran the ETrac since it came out and got my hands on the GT about 4 months ago and never looked back period. The GT doesn't need a lesche it needs a stainless steel scoop to dig with. In my experience with six minelab machines and a few others the GT has beat them all in depth. It will find stuff even the ETrac won't find in heavy mineralization. The GT when ran very slow will find stuff no other detector will if you ask me. Tiny small targets to anything above. I've never seen the ETrac or Explorers or any of the Xterra's do what it is doing for me. Deep is relevant also. In black sand iron rich red clay it shut all my other detectors down. The GT when ran snails pace will find targets all over the place in this stuff. The machine will be total silent nulled out and will sound off when ran over and accepted target, anything above iron simply. Being relevant, depth is no wheres as great as in good ground, but other machines have left a bevy load of targets in the stuff I'm hunting, I mean a lot of them per they were not seeing the targets. These places have turned into my gold mine! Coins too. What made me realize this is the loads of 1970's pulltabs present. Lot's of them on hard hunted a lot places. In a time when everyone wants to know almost for certain what they are digging before they exert the energy with a lot of machines. The GT puts them to shame. They are missing great targets wanting to know, as I was, with all my other machines. The new machines with whitewalls and curb feelers and pretty screens are causing many to leave stuff in the ground. The GT will find them. Lot's of horsepower in that little blue control box, no bells and whistles.

 

[Rick(ND)]

I have both the GT and the E-Trac and use them both, also had tried all the different Explorers and also the different Sovereign and find the GT is the best Sovereign for those that get to know it well. The E-Trac is the better FBS detector and feel the E-Trac will beat the GT as far as depth, seeing targets closer to iron plus has a better ID on targets. Where the GT is top dog is ease of operation as it is more of a turn on a go machine and find I don't have to change my setting from what I start with originally. I have a couple of different guy I hunt with sometimes with on has a older Explorer XS, the other a E-Trac. The guy with the XS does really does well with his as it is the only detector he has used for the last 12 years, so he knows it well. The guy with the E-Trac started with the Sovereign XS and did great also,, but he tried the Explorer XS and went to the XS II then the SE Pro and now the E-Trac for the last couple of years, but before he did he took the SE Pro and the E-Trac and did some signal comparison and found the E-Trac gave a better signal on actual targets in the ground. He cant say one went deeper than the other, but it was easier to hear the signals with the E-Trac. His best finds have been from areas he pounded with the Sovereign that he has missed before, so he swear by his E-Trac is deeper and will see coins his Sovereign has misses. He knew his Sovereign well too when he had it and getting 200 or more silver a year was normal for him, the guy with the XS also does this well with his total in 2011 of 346 silver coins. When I been able to hunt with either of the guy we do a lot of signal comparison on the deep and weak signals and both are able to see some I can not with the GT, I get a few I feel are good that they are questionable to them, but these would be dug if you have any experience with a detector.
I will say one thing on this deep small targets that is been talked about is I have seen some of the old harness washers that are small about 1/4 the size of a dime at 4-5 inches that sound good, but I run 10-12 o'clock sensitivity all the time, just change my sweep speed, might have even seen a few deeper, but I use a Sun Ray probe and know when I am getting close to the target as I only dig as deep as I have to and not a big plug and take all the dirt out and say it was as deep as the hole i dug. This probe also helps with those coins on a angle that pinpoint off as much as 3 or 4 inches so instead of digging deeper i can hear the target off to the side and dig out the side more to find it.
Now i will be adding a Deus to my detectors just to see if it can do something my GT or E-Trac cant to, sounds like it could from what I been reading, but just have to see for myself if it will for me.


Rick

 

[Critterhunter]

Here's a repost from the Explorer forum...

Yup. Most of the silver coin i find is between 9-11 inch range. I found a merc. Dime at 11-1/2 inches deep. with the explorer, And the deepest coin i have ever found was a indian head cent at just over 14 inches and i was using the sovereign GT. The sovereign is a deeper detector then the explorer, just my opinion, but the explorer is smarter.

 

[Rick(ND)]

This all depends on how well you know the detector you are using, many try and use the Explorer using someone else pattern they do well with , but you will not as our hunting style different and how we understand the detector we are using.Now when you know your detector well and the guy you hunt with knows his well you can compare signals and see what the results are. I love my Sovereign and know it well as I have had 16 years experience with it surprising others as to what i can find in their spots they say nothing left as it has been hit so many time and nothing is being found. At this time the only detectors that give me problem finding more than my GT will is the Explorers and the E-Tracs and many times deeper, but when I use my Explorer or E-Trac I haven't found it to be deeper, but that is because I don't know it like my Sovereign GT. I think if you ran into a person that knows his Explorer or E-trac well and knows how to set it correctly (you learn this from Experience like the Sovereign in the Field and not air testing and trying to copy others setting we read about on these forums) you will be surprised at what they will find you have miss, this is the same with the Sovereign if you know it better it will work better than the Explorer or E-trak if you don't know how to fully use it.
I also notice that you are getting more experienced with the Sovereign as many of the tips you are saying are one some of us experienced with the Sovereigns have mentioned before several times.
Now my Deus will be here next week and I will be able to see how this detector will stack up to my GT or my E-Trac, just got to keep a open mind and know I will not be able to find out something in a day or so and will have to really give it a good test in areas I have hit hard since 1973 with so many different detectors in that time. in the last 20 year the Sovereigns have did the best for me.

 

[Critterhunter]

If your interested in the gold aspect of water hunting, there is a new thread on the Excal hitting harder on gold than the FBS machines in the Etrac or Explorer forum, and that's not the first time I've heard that. For me my GT does hit harder on gold than my Explorers did, for whatever reason. I think a lot of it has to do with the better audio harmonics of the Sovereign. There's more "meat" to listen to.

Here's an old Sovereign thread in which the Explorer was tested against the Sovereign on gold rings at the beach. Backs up what I said above. It's also some interesting reading on various other comparisons of the two machines.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?21,429482,429482#msg-429482

 

[Neil]

Critter that same guy now hunts an explorer modded to be waterproof

you might want to check the dates of the posts next time.