ironman200081
Active member
I have spent the past week-plus investigating the Manticore. I have read everything I could and watched all the videos (the Lawrie field tests and the speculation/talking heads). Like when the Equinox came out, I am trying to see if this new machine will be worth the jump from the CTX. As I ogle the specs and drool over the design, I notice my CTX staring at me like an old housewife catching her husband peeping at the sunbathers on the beach (which I would NEVER do because I am always looking down at my coil!!) I could hear the CTX yelling at me, saying how she has stayed by me for over ten years and two failed marriages. Well, friends, I felt pretty low that I would betray the old CTX like that so I packed her up and headed to a spot that has been thoroughly picked over by every detectorist in a 100-mile radius and their idiot brother. I cut my teeth at this spot years ago with the E-Trac and dug up so much silver and Civil War relics. When I got the CTX in 2012, I spent the next few years digging out what I thought was the last of the good stuff. By 2016, I had gone several hunts here without a silver or relic, so I patted my back and declared it "hunted out."
I arrived and put on all of my gear that makes me irresistible to passing joggers (knee pads, sweat band, Pro-Swing harness). I fire up the old girl and swing away. My first several targets are recent clad, what I had expected. Then I got a jumpy 12-45 signal that turned to a 12-39 when i turned 90 degrees. I would usually mentally filter this out as screw cap/junk, but the depth was good at 6-7 inches, the sweet spot for this site. Bear in mind that there are rusty iron and nails everywhere at every depth, and pull tabs at the shallow depths. This is a tough, trashy site. Anyway, I pop the plug and at 7 inches dead center, I find a Civil War pinfire casing. Neat but why the high tone? I sweep again and get a good 12-45. Just to the side of where the pinfire was, I pulled out a silver Roosie. My first silver here in 6 years! I was pretty dumbfounded.
I swept some more and got more deep signals. One more silver Roosie, another pinfire, and five wheats, one of which was holed through Lincoln's head (no doubt a Booth fan did that one). All found in the main area of the site where I have hunted before with the E-Trac and CTX. So what was different this time? Well, for one, when I last hit the place I was using an older version of my park pattern. I had tweaked and tuned it since then based on hundreds of hours of testing and real-world digging, and have been running the attached in high trash places since 2018. Second, other detectorists may have cleared out more modern trash for me since I was last there, and helped unmask these gems. It may be a bit of both, I don't know. But I do know that the CTX is the best machine I have ever used and it has so many features that the casual user will never realize. Just by testing and tweaking a search pattern and settings, I could find more keepers that I had missed before.
The Manticore does not have that type of customization. It does not use FBS. It is not the CTX. Until Minelab makes the machine that will replace what the CTX can do with the features it has (and much, much more, of course) I am going to stay with swinging my old gal.
I arrived and put on all of my gear that makes me irresistible to passing joggers (knee pads, sweat band, Pro-Swing harness). I fire up the old girl and swing away. My first several targets are recent clad, what I had expected. Then I got a jumpy 12-45 signal that turned to a 12-39 when i turned 90 degrees. I would usually mentally filter this out as screw cap/junk, but the depth was good at 6-7 inches, the sweet spot for this site. Bear in mind that there are rusty iron and nails everywhere at every depth, and pull tabs at the shallow depths. This is a tough, trashy site. Anyway, I pop the plug and at 7 inches dead center, I find a Civil War pinfire casing. Neat but why the high tone? I sweep again and get a good 12-45. Just to the side of where the pinfire was, I pulled out a silver Roosie. My first silver here in 6 years! I was pretty dumbfounded.
I swept some more and got more deep signals. One more silver Roosie, another pinfire, and five wheats, one of which was holed through Lincoln's head (no doubt a Booth fan did that one). All found in the main area of the site where I have hunted before with the E-Trac and CTX. So what was different this time? Well, for one, when I last hit the place I was using an older version of my park pattern. I had tweaked and tuned it since then based on hundreds of hours of testing and real-world digging, and have been running the attached in high trash places since 2018. Second, other detectorists may have cleared out more modern trash for me since I was last there, and helped unmask these gems. It may be a bit of both, I don't know. But I do know that the CTX is the best machine I have ever used and it has so many features that the casual user will never realize. Just by testing and tweaking a search pattern and settings, I could find more keepers that I had missed before.
The Manticore does not have that type of customization. It does not use FBS. It is not the CTX. Until Minelab makes the machine that will replace what the CTX can do with the features it has (and much, much more, of course) I am going to stay with swinging my old gal.
