Made a new freind today

[mwaynebennett]

I was out MDing the lake bottom where I have been going the past few weeks and saw another fellow out doing likewise. We started talking and comparing machines. He had a White's MXT with a small elliptical coil. His coil gave him a sweep width of about 6" compared to mine of about 9". For every coin he found, I found about three. His $900 machine with the $150 coil did appear a little bit better, particularly in its ability to pin point the targets. However even with his VDI #s, it was not infallible. He got a signal indicating a dime or penny that turned out to be a scrap piece of aluminum. That is my problem with the VDI #s. It is pointless trying to tell the difference between a nickel and a pull tab when the target might actually be something not even close.

I came home and watched the White's video on the MXT machine and decided that the designers at White's made the machine too complicated. It has about five adjustment knobs/switches and provides too much info on the display. My little Elite 2200 was out-preforming the MXT in coin shooting anyway and only cost about 1/7 the price. I was impressed with the White's pin pointing but BH offers a no motion PP on some of its machines does it not?

Also, the MXT takes a huge battery pack and is a much heavier and bulkier machine.

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.

 

[Sky1]

I used my Titan 2000xd today which is essentially a 2200 like yours. It worked so well today, I had a blast!

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

I use the Disc 3300 for part of the summer and the MXT for the rest till fall.
Perhaps the person you met with the MXT is not use to it. Small coil will definitely cover less area.
I have the standard 9.5 coil on the MXT and do well with it.
The 3300 is no slouch neither but the MXT is easier to operate.the way of the set up .
It's very easy to setup and use with hardly no learning curve.
One thing I like about the 3300 is it has a few tones as the MXT only one tone in coin/jewelry mode
Relic mode has two tones trigger forward but haven't use it in that mode.
In the hands of a good operator both are good detectors.

 

[mwaynebennett]

Hi Joel:

The fellow I met with the White's had used if for quite a while. He said it was his second Whites and he had been MDing for many years. He seemed surprised that my BH had different tones for different targets. I would say that my BH is about 95% the machine his MXT was and one heck of a lot less expensive.

Keep in mind however that his MXT was in coin/jewelry mode, but from watching the video on White's web site, I'm not sure how the relic or prospecting mode would improve on what the BH can do. The video says that the MXT operated at 13.87 kHz I believe it was and that is supposed to make it better for finding coins.

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.

 

[Phil]

Just because your new friend has detected for years doesn't mean he is good with the MXT. I have a friend who has used an XLT for 9yrs and he has never changed one setting from the factory Coin program. He has no clue on how to utilize the max potential of his detector. As far as VDI numbers, when I hunted clad with my MXT it was the best nickel machine I've ever used. It got me over 1000 nickels a year and not a lot of trash. That came from 100's of hours of use and learning the subtle differences between pulltabs and nickels. I could tell by the VDI number and the pinpoint signal. I'm not doubting that you outhunted the fellow with the MXT but all that says is that you evidently know your machine better than he knows his. When I first started detecting I bought a Fisher CZ-5, one of the deepest seeking detectors on the market. I thought I was set and would start finding old coins and tons of clad. I met up with an older fellow that used a little 2 knob Tesoro and we went detecting together. I kinda felt sorry for him since he had such a simple machine and I had a top of the line model. I didn't want to embarass him to badly. We hunted a park for about 45 minutes and got together to compare finds. I was proud as heck of my dozen or so clad coins I'd dug up and the old timer congratulated me and told me I did good. When I asked him what he had found, he reached into his pocket and struggles to get his hand out. He finally got it out and showed me a handful of coins, about 3 or 4 to every one I found. Now does that mean the little Tesoro was a better detector than my Fisher CZ-5? All it meant was that he knew his little detector a heck of a lot better than I knew mine. Later I found that my Fisher would hit on old deep coins that his Tesoro wouldn't even pick up but until I learned the detector better those capabilities didn't do me any good.

 

[mwaynebennett]

Hi Phil:

I know that there is a great deal of art and skill involved in MDing. I got to use the MXT and its LCD display had overlapping nickels and pull tabs and gold targets, so how can the operator distinguish between these if the MD cannot? That is the point I make when I say that the VDI #s don't mean a lot when there are so many variables involved. It is like an airline announcing that a trip from city "A" to city "B" will take 2 Hours and 17.25663986325 minutes. Such a high degree of accuracy is not possible because of all the variables involved. An older ring type pull tab that is lying flat will have a different signal than one folded over and on its edge etc.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would like to see MDing clubs have a contest to determine how accurately contestants could ID targets. I would place targets in plastic peanut butter jars that were painted so that the contents could not be seen from the outside. Each target would be suspended in the approximate center of each jar by two pieces of foam rubber to keep them from rattling. That would be a good test of the capabilities of various machines.

Also, have you compared the weight of the MXT to the Elite? The MXT is 4.6 lbs vs 2.5 lbs for the Elite 2200. No wonder some folks complain of arm fatigue and some buy slings to transfer the load to their shoulders etc.. The warranty of the MXT is 2 years. The BH has a 5 year warranty.

I just cannot see how the White's is all that much better, at least for coin and jewelry hunting and considering it is about 6 times as expensive.

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Both detectors are made in the US that's the only similarities

 

[Sky1]

Just because your new friend has detected for years doesn't mean he is good with the MXT. I have a friend who has used an XLT for 9yrs and he has never changed one setting from the factory Coin program. He has no clue on how to utilize the max potential of his detector. As far as VDI numbers, when I hunted clad with my MXT it was the best nickel machine I've ever used. It got me over 1000 nickels a year and not a lot of trash. That came from 100's of hours of use and learning the subtle differences between pulltabs and nickels. I could tell by the VDI number and the pinpoint signal. I'm not doubting that you outhunted the fellow with the MXT but all that says is that you evidently know your machine better than he knows his. When I first started detecting I bought a Fisher CZ-5, one of the deepest seeking detectors on the market. I thought I was set and would start finding old coins and tons of clad. I met up with an older fellow that used a little 2 knob Tesoro and we went detecting together. I kinda felt sorry for him since he had such a simple machine and I had a top of the line model. I didn't want to embarass him to badly. We hunted a park for about 45 minutes and got together to compare finds. I was proud as heck of my dozen or so clad coins I'd dug up and the old timer congratulated me and told me I did good. When I asked him what he had found, he reached into his pocket and struggles to get his hand out. He finally got it out and showed me a handful of coins, about 3 or 4 to every one I found. Now does that mean the little Tesoro was a better detector than my Fisher CZ-5? All it meant was that he knew his little detector a heck of a lot better than I knew mine. Later I found that my Fisher would hit on old deep coins that his Tesoro wouldn't even pick up but until I learned the detector better those capabilities didn't do me any good.

Right on Phil, I can relate to this cause I seem to do better with my Bounty Hunter then I do with my Minelab when in dense areas and shallow targets, IE. gravel parking lots, trashy parks etc. These finds of course are typically just clad and not very deep. On the beach however, the Minelab is nothing short of amazing. I have learned what some different coin sounds like and am probably 90% accurate in telling you what it is before digging if the coin is off by itself. But multiple coins above each other and coins next to, above, or below junk. I tend to blow off and move past. I need to slow down, stop trying to analyze and do more digging if I want the deep old finds.

I am still learning both my machines and have a way to go.

 

[mwaynebennett]

What Sky1 said may be true. Where we were searching was a gravel lake bottom win lots of trash.

Mark
Elite 2200
WA St.