Ive been pulling silver coins, brass and copper relics along side iron for many years using Minelab products, and others, like the MXT. Have you ever watched a MXT video that comes with the machine new ? It's an eye opener, for sure.
It's done quite often and is NO secret. What you're doing with the Tesoro's on your test is not that remarkable, except, you are doing the test in the air instead of under real hunt conditions.
Actual targets found in the ground in undisturbed soil is where the Explorer shows it's muscle .. not in air testing. I've found silver coins with iron stains all over them form nails or bolts laying in the same hole or even on top of the coins, same results with buttons and lead or any non ferrous target.
Also found at least a dozen coins stained with iron with the X-Terra and many more with the Sovereign GT. And yes, the X-Terra will eek them out too among the iron.
Air testing MInelabs means very little to the folks that actually use them, this has been covered over and over again on the forums.
My point is this, if your entire first impression about a metal detector is based on air test for the most part .. well, you're really missing out on a lot of information.
Spending enough time with any detector and really learning it's language is the only way to truly compare different units and be fair about it.
Mike
