Hot Shot Coil & XL Pro - Yea or Nay/Pros & Cons?

[Ohio Coinhunter]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to get some feedback from anyone using an XL Pro with Jimmy Sierra's 12" Hot Shot coil. There are no larger coils for this detector anymore and the Hot Shot seems to be the only option. However, I've heard from a couple of people off the forums that some coils are OK and some just dont work well. I have a buddy that went thru 3 coils for his QXT that didn't work after 10 - 15 minutes of use and finally gave up and got his money back. He states that it may be the electronics on the QXT that made the use of the coil fail. So, any feedback would be appreciated, good or bad for using the coil with the XL Pro for deeper coin hunting, etc. FYI - no responses from any inquiry emails sent thru Jimmy Sierra's website email and no contact phone # either.

Thanks in advance...

 

[thebeatmachine]

I used one for a classic idx and it worked well. It works like the 950 coil just bigger. The reports of falsing on the qxt are all over the place. I no longer have it because it was too big. it increases depth and id but..... only in conditions away from junk and large metal objects. See Monte's post below he likes smaller coils on these machines and I do too.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Won't work well in many areas..Of course they are heavier to start out with, naturally bigger is not always better especially in bad ground, junk areas and above all salt water beaches as they see more and one has to turn down sensitivty losing the depth you have gained. I am more of a stock coil kind of guy but indeed many excell with large coils
so its your call one would guess...Lack of answering of E-mails puzzles me as Jimmy runs a top notch outfit with excellent products..

 

[Dan-o]

I swing a Whites 6000di pro sl, which was replaced by the XL pro.
I have a 12" Hot Head coil which might be similar to the Hot Shot.
As Dan-Pa mentioned, I had to turn the sensitivity down to run the coil. I didn't use it much because most of the areas I hunted were trashy and this coil just did not work well in those situations. I also didn't like the added weight.
So I ended up buying a Blue Max 600 coil and found I could turn the sensitivity up much higher and as far as I could tell wasn't loosing depth with it. Also much easier to swing.

Dan C

 

[Monte]

I had two of them. Tried them on my modified Classic III SL, modified IDX Pro, 6000 Pro XL (same as XL Pro) and XLT.

I compared them with the performance I got with my most-used coil, a 5.3 BullsEye (and a Blue Max 600 which is the same), thin-profile 8", and the stock 950's.

I live in NW Oregon and mainly tried working with them in our high mineralization for finding older silver coins in 75-120+ year old parks, but I did chance upon a few moderately mineralized locations.

It didn't take me long to determine that, at best, they didn't do any better than most 12" sized coils have through the years when it comes to looking for smaller-sized coins and rings and buttons. That was when they worked best. Might even just say when they worked even half-decent, which wasn't all the time. I didn't care for the weight/balance of the coils, the target masking in trashy sites (expected), the weak audio response on some of the deeper coins (5"-8" range in-ground), and generally found that I had superior depth and signal response/clarity when using the 950, 8" or 6

 

[Critterhunter]

I've used two brand new Hot Shots with the QXT Pro. Both worked well for about ten minutes at a location and then would get very unstable. Despite changing hunting spots the results were always the same- after about ten minutes the machine would become highly unstable. That's a shame because I popped one or two mercs at one spot that were a good 2 to 3 inches deeper than I've ever dug them with the stock 9.5" coil. I was all excited about how I was going to kill the silver at this spot with one of these coils and the next thing I know it's going crazy. Power the machine off and back on and it's still unstable. Only when I changed locations would it work well again for another ten minutes or so.

At first I believed this might be due to something being over taxed in the QXT that needed time to rest/cool down/whatever. After doing some research on building my own coils I think I may have an answer. This is all speculation so don't take my word for it, but I think it had something to do with temperture. Coil placement is critical in a concentric. Any movement would cause the coil to get unstable. Perhaps the coil was heating up a bit in the sun and the slight temperture change was distorting one or more of the coils. This would explain why it would mysteriously work at a new spot for a while before going south again, yet wouldn't work if I turned the unit back off/on or even removed the batteries. Come to think of it, this might also explain why these coils were white. I always wondered why somebody would make a coil anything but black for cosmetic reasons. Maybe this was an attempt to keep the coil from soaking up too much warmth from the sun? I'm probably wrong but that's my stab at it.

Yea, larger concentric coils tend to start losing sensitivity to smaller coins but not a double D. A good 12 to 14" double D coil will retain sensitivity to small items. Large coils do have their place. I have several very clean sites where the coins are very deep. Not only can they help you to cover more ground, but they will get you some extra depth. Partly why I went to a Minelab GT- a large assortment of larger coils to max out coin depth, not to mention a vareity of smaller coils to sniper coins in trash. Never found the 5.3" Whites coil to offer my QXT Pro any better seperation as it was always very good with the 9.5". It did improve audio harmonics though. I could hear the two holes in a pulltab with it, so that would make it a nice ring hunter.

I feel Whites has snubbed a large portion of loyal users by not producing other coils for the low frequency units that the company was built on. It didn't take somebody long to come out with more coil options on the MXT/DFX, yet I'm willing to bet there are many more of their lower frequency machines out there than these units, all of which these coils could be marketed to. Makes no sense to me. Make a Double D in the 12" size for them. Maybe a 10x12 and a smaller 4x6 or so butterfly coil for them as well. I've said it before, I'm willing to bet that a low frequency Whites with a larger coil could give any detector out there a run for their money on deep silver/copper coins.