New to the MXT and this message board

[bentfork]

Hello folks. I'm new to this message board and I have a new MXT. I am reasonably experienced with metal detectors as my dad and I were at it when I was 13 or 14 years old. That would be 40 years ago. And I worked on magnetometers in my working career. Although I have been away from the hobby for quite some time, I have kept up on the technology and got back into it about 3 years ago. At that time I purchased and have been using a Bounty Hunter (I'm ain't impressed). So I decided to upgrade. Wow!

Anyway...Here's my story. I got out today and used the bugger for a couple of hours. Very nice. Got a 43 Merc and some pennies. Most of my metal detecting will be coin and jewelry shooting and relics, but I do expect to get some prospecting in from time to time. I have read the "book" cover-to-cover several times and understand what's going on in the "box". But I thought I would go first hand to the folks that have MXTs and ask them for some pointers. Now I see from reading messages I should have gone ahead and purchased the DD coil. Oh well, I'll put that on my list first. But nevertheless, until I do have my DD coil, what kind of pointers can you folks give me using the MXT with the 950 for coin shooting and jewelry hunting. Don't be afraid to step up now with the suggetions and opinions.

Thanks a bunch. And please forgive the long winded message.

Gary Norris
gwnorris2000@yahoo.com

 

[Rick(ND)]

My wife has a MXT and I too will use it at times as I feel it is the best Whites i have ever used. Now both my wife and I run this MXT the same as we like the relic mode instead of the coin and jewelry mode. The reason is we have 2 tones to go by so we can set our disc to reject pull tabs and get a high tone on everything that reads higher and a low tone on those that read in the pull tabs and under. we leave the trigger in the center position too. Now we can swing a little faster listening for those high tones and the low tones that are solid sounding we can check the VDI numbers as the icons will not be correct to see if it is a target we want to check out more. We have been running the track on in most area, but where there is a lot of nails we have been ground balancing it and then lock it. I also will lock it if I have a weaker signal I want to check out by going over the target several times as in track it can track out a good signal. I just find a spot with no trash, then ground balance and lock it.
On sensitivity we run max before it goes into the + numbers and use it in the + numbers when we have a weak signal we want to check out.
We run the 6X10 DD coil and the little 4X6 mini shooter in trash, but these setting also we use with the stock coil.
On Sunday for a couple hours and Monday for a couple of hours my wife with the MXT pulled 121 coins out of a park that were all new coins, but some were 4-5 inches down while I used my Explorer and got 50 coins, but I got as 1881 IH and 8 Wheaties being I had to go slow in the trash.
The MXT is a fun detector to use and I feel you will enjoy it and be careful not to crank the sensitivity too high as it will be noise.

Rick

 

[bentfork]

Thanks for the reply, Rick. In the past with my Bounty Hunter I have found an awful lot of silver that sure looks like rusty nails to me. That's the problem I have in my area. Lots of rusty nails that mimic silver. I have come to the conclusion, that running in relic mode so that I have 2 tones is the way to go for me. Now here's the more specific question. Obviously if I set the discriminator too high to reject pull tabs I might be rejecting other more valuable targets. As if pull tabs are valuable, ha. What I have been doing is setting my discrimator by placing test targets on the ground. This seems to work best, but those rusty nails still bit me today. Why? Should I lock the ground balance?

Gary Norris
gwnorris2000@yahoo.com

 

[boxtopp]

My 2 cent worth is take the time to learn your machine. Field experience is the key to success with the mxt. I hunt 80% to "ground" balance unless its just to junky with iron trash. Then I would ground balance and lock for a faster recovery speed. I prefer a low discrimination due to I like to hear what's in the ground. When I come to a spot that is riddled with iron I slow down and pay a closer attention. Iron will mask good targets and they are most likely be passed by other hunters. That's when years of experience will prevail......Good luck and keep us posted on your progress....Eric
P.S. remember that is just my educated opinion, there is more than one way to skin a cat! I hope that may give you some insight.

 

[Rob (IL)]

Most of the time I hunt like Rick. You mentioned nails so you must be hunting trashy areas. Nothing is going to help more than a small coil and moving that MXT slow. I don't care which brand you use. I use a 5" excelerator. I also move my disc up to 3 or preset from were I usally run at 1.9.

Put a penny and nickel on the ground with a large nail between them to experiment with. Move the coil across the nail and then with the length of the nail. Experiment. Change the disc and modes. See what works for you. Rob

 

[ralph]

When you get an iffy hit just toggle the mode switch to prospecting, it will give you a probibality of iron readout. Anything that reads 80% is almost certainly iron.