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Lots of fun and finds testing the small coils over the last couple of weeks:super:

H

Hotcz70

New member
Over the last few days we have had temps as high as 40 degrees and today it was 51.:cheers:

Before I begin I want to state this is something that I spent a lot of personal time on. It has nothing to do with any certain coil or any certain company. It is just something I wanted to do for all the forum members here who were still wondering if they actually CAN find coins missed by the midsized and stock coils.

I will tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt and with 100% honesty and seriousness...that YES you can and WILL if you have the patience.

It isn't for everyone and requires you devote a lot of time and concentration while trying to ferret out some keeper coins from the trash and iron.

It also requires that you go slower than slow and put forth some tedious effort...but it can be very rewarding when you do.

One very important thing I want to add is that I do NOT consider the SEF 6 x 8...Minelab 7.5"... or the Sunray X-8 as small coils. I consider them midsized coils.

I have used and tested each of those coils and they are awesome...but even they can miss some coins hiding in the most extreme trash laiden sites.

A small coil to me would be the 5" Excelerator...4 x 7 Excelerator...the Sunray X-5...and the 6" Excelerator....and I use them at the sites which have the heaviest concentration of trash targets.

I have not tried the 5" Excelerator but I HAVE tried and thoroughly tested the Sunray X-5...and you would have to beat me with a ball bat to get it from me. It is an absolute laser beam of a "coin sniper" in extreme trash and goes pretty deep.

The same goes for the the 6" Excelerator. I can't even begin to tell you how many silver coins and injuns' I found at depths of up to 9" with this coil. It separates well in heavy trash and gets great depth.

As for the 4.5 x 7 Excelerator...it is a nice blend of both earlier mentioned coils and it's unique "little football" shape can really hone in on super tight spots.

Over a 2 week period I hit some sites that have the heaviest concentration of trash and junk. Sites such as old bleacher foundations....older concession areas....older picnic pavillion areas...picnic table areas...football field sidelines..etc.

What I did at each of these sites was do my best to locate what I felt were keeper targets with a small coil and flag them. I would then pop on a stock sized coil and go back to each flagged target to see if it would separate the target from trash or if it would at least give me a "dig me" signal.

Now remember when I switched back to the stock sized coil I also had the advantage of already knowing these were possible targets because I had flagged them when using the small coil.

What I found out over the last couple of weeks was honestly not a shock to me. It simply reinforced something I have proven over and over to myself countless times before.

I was able to ferret out over 20 keeper coins with the small coils hiding in the densest trash...and only 5 of those coins were recognizable as "dig me" signals when I went back over the flagged targets with the stock sized coils. They were a jumbled mess of sounds and while I feel I am fairly decent at picking out keepers hiding in trash...I wouldn't have dug these with the stock coils.

I took a lot of pics of wheaties mixed in with junk too but I can obviously only post so many pics. Therefor decided to post more of the coin finds I was able to ferret from the iron.

While todays newer and improved stock sized coils do a good job of sniffing out keepers in the trash...they simply can't and don't perform the task as well as the small aftermarket coils do...especially at high trash density sites.

It is what it is...and unless you have given one a shot...you will never realize the advantages they bring to the table at some of your worst trash filled sites.:thumbup:

I think I'm callin' it a season.:cheers:

Christmas is almost here...I'm very busy....personal training is booming for me at the gym...and the ground will be freezing soon.

I would have never dreamed I would be able to hunt in mostly unfrozen ground a week before Christmas here in IL:cheers:

I hope everyone had a good hunting season.
 
I have one spot that I know for sure is even too trashy for my X-8. Maybe a 4.5 X 7 would be a good addition to the arsenal.
 
Great post on the small coils Bryce...................................:thumbup:


The only small coil I have is the 4.5 x 7 Exc........It has been great at recovering coins in heavily trashed sites...I hope to try some of the other small coils at some point to make a comparison..

John
 
[size=large]cool pic of hurc. looks like a puzzle sitting in the yard. blended in real well. thacks for the test results. i only have small coils for my whites so far but will look into getting that x-5 at least. the small coils have proven to me also how much can be missed even by the mid-sized DD coil.

HH[/size]
 
Bryce, you gave a great deal of information about the small coils available. I too agree with you about the coils in the 8 inch category. I have had several 5 inch round dd coils and while they work great, to me they are like a "needle in a haystack" type of coil. I got the Excelerator 4.5x7 a couple of years back and it was the perfect small coil for me. Two inches is like a mile when comparing it to a 5 inch coil and I felt like I could cover some ground with it. You don't hear alot about it, but in my opinion, it is the best small coil available. Keep up your great work as the moderator of this and the other forum. We all appreciate the time it takes. Merry Christimas to all. R.L.
 
Thanks for taking the time to test these small coils.
I do have a few sites that are very bad with junk and I might be trying the 5" Xcelerater before long. Nice finds BTW.
 
Once again I think Bryce that you proved that depth isn't everything like most people seem to think. It's all about seperation it's KING!! More found items on this forum seem to come from 6" - 7" and less then 8" and deeper.

I think you've shown here there is more to find with smaller sized and mid sized coils of coins hidden than there probably is of deepies like most people think since most sites have been pretty pounded all these years and the easy shallow/deep coins have MOSTLY been cleaned out.

All questions I seem to read on here are about depth.

Thanks for the good report once again.
 
Excellent info and thanks!

I had a 5" coil for a fisher CZ6a I had for a while and it really did open up areas that the 8" coil could not. The first trip to a heavily hunted and high trash old park resulted in me finding a Barber Quarter about 2 inches deep next to a tree. I'd been over that spot at least a couple times for sure with the big coil.

The area I live in was settled in the 1700's. In fact the church right up the road from my house was founded in the early 1700's and has couple Rev. War soldiers buried there. So needless to say, the targets are out there and so is 300 years of nails, UMO's, pull tabs etc!

I only have the stock coil for my XS at the moment but this has me wanting to look into getting the 6" excelerator.

Steve
 
Thanks for al the hard work you do and all the time you take to help everybody on this forum. Great finds and pics buddy.
 
Bryce, in all the testing and various size and shape coils did you change the response or audio signals on the machine? How about sensitivity? I would expect sensitivity to be turned down pretty low. Just curious.
 
xplorerxs said:
Bryce, in all the testing and various size and shape coils did you change the response or audio signals on the machine? How about sensitivity? I would expect sensitivity to be turned down pretty low. Just curious.
Click to expand...

Actually it was just the opposite. I run my SE sensitivity hotter with the small coils...as high as 30 manual...OR semi auto 32 depending on whether or not there is/was iron mixed in with the trash.

To me personally a small coil is not near as effective unless I am getting the depth I feel I need...which I DO NOT...unless my sensitivity is high.

TRUE....you can still effectively pick great shallow silver and Injuns' at shallow depths which have been masked by junk for years....BUT I want to be able to hit deeper coins hidden in trash too. Deeper??...I am speaking of coins in the 7" t0 9" range.

What I have found over the last few years is that for me personally...EACH and EVERY small coil I have ever used did a decent job of picking up goodies from junk/trash.

What makes these same "good" coils into GREAT coils to me is if they can be run "hot" ...WITHOUT falsing and chirping...in order to hit the deeper masked coins I want in the 7" to 9" range.

All my other settings remain the same whether I use a small coil or a stock sized coil...unless I decide to run with "fast" on. Most of the time I don't do that though even if the trash is super dense...because I feel "fast" on chops the sweet signal short.

Instead I just slow dowm even further...to a slow crawl:biggrin:. It might take me 30 minutes to cover a 10' x 10' area...but that's okay.

When you use a small coil...you have to absolutely creep if you expect to be successful at picking the truly masked coins from the junk.
 
Good info and thanks! One thing I have to constantly remind myself to do is SLOW DOWN!!!

My next outing is going to be literally 'across the road' from a park where I found a 1778 King George Copper and very little else of value. I guess I just got lucky on that one because it was all of about 2 inches deep! Anyway, that site has a good bit of trash in it (the 6" excelerator I just ordered might be of use there!) even through which I found some modern coins and a ring and silver necklace. I know there was an old homesite there as I also dug square nails. (I will dig nails on purpose now and then to help me decide how old a site is...) I was driving by there the other day and long story short, the area across the road is part of the park, which I never knew, and there's absolutely no easy way to get to it. :tongue: meaning its been just sitting there waiting for me. Heck I thought it belonged to a car dealership that has it fenced off! I drove to the back of the dealer lot last night and lo and behold theres an opening in the fence I can use to access the area.
The area in question is wooded now and next to a good size stream/small river and right on the edge of town that founded in the early 18th century in Delaware. That area runs for 100+ yards on either side of the stream and several hundred yards long. So, my thought is that stream might have been a magnet for folks back in the day to hunt, fish, cut wood, haul water, camp etc. What the heck, we won't know till we try, right?
 
Great info.........right now I'm having so much fun and good luck with the Pro-coil, that I haven't even thought of purchasing a smaller coil...........but I definitely know of a few spots one would come in very handy!!!

HH and Merry Christmas.........Hawkeye Jim.
 
Nice post buddy. I like my 6x8 SEF coil but need to try a smaller one at my school site from what I've seen you pull out.
Next time we hunt I'd like to snag your Sunray 5" for a while. What are friends for...right??:)
 
Interesting posts -- and Bryce/Dave, you bring up thought-provoking points that I have been pondering after reading this thread. I hunted for the longest time with just my Pro coil, and then bought a 6x8 SEF mid-summer. I have come to really like that coil, and I KNOW it has helped me find some targets that I otherwise wouldn't have, due to masking. However, it seems that a case is being made to use the even SMALLER 5" type coil at times, in really trashy areas; I wonder if I will find a similar increase in previously-masked finds going from the 6x8 SEF to say, a 5" SunRay, as I did when hitting sites with the 6x8 SEF that I previously had with my Pro coil...

Steve
 
I'd say yes definately that will be the case Steve as Bryce has just proved here.
Seems like there is always something more there waiting to be found. That's what keeps this hobby fun and interesting to say the least to me. You just never know what's next.
 
You are right, Tom.

I remember back, when I would read all the time about guys who would use smaller coils to find stuff hidden in the trash, stuff in "hunted out" areas that many, many other hunters had obviously walked over in the past. But to me, as a less experienced detectorist, those stories sounded almost mythic. But eventually, I started to make these finds as well. I still remember the first few targets I ever found, using a smaller coil, that I KNOW that either I, or someone else, had missed with a larger coil (and probably missed many, many times, in fact). These first few "partially masked" finds with the smaller coil really left an impression on me; it really builds your confidence as a detectorist that finding stuff that others have missed IS not only POSSIBLE, but PROBABLE, as you learn more about your machine and the coils you are using, and about the hobby in general.

I borrowed a friend's 5" SunRay, with the intention of testing it to see what I think. This post has convinced me to simply buy it from him. I look forward to "unmasking" even MORE goodies that have been missed in the "hunted out" areas that I hunt.

Bryce always talks about the thrill of finding things in hammered, "hunted out" parks that you KNOW have been missed many times by other detectorists. I have begun to experience just a little of that, and I agree -- there IS a unique thrill involved. Sure, a multiple silver day on a more "virgin" site is a thrill, but finding a goodie or two in places that are said to be "hunted out" is different, but thrilling in its own way!

Steve
 
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