Relic hunt day 2

[Larry (IL)]

Wow what a day, 85 with a heat index of 105...... I'm getting too old for this........... but a good time had by all. Rob joined me for a 6 hour hunt and we were rewarded with some nice finds. Not as good as last time though, the goodies are getting harder to find and what is left is very deep, 10 to 12 inches or deeper in some cases.

Almost all of the finds were shot, in one way or the other, but I did get a nice dropped .69 and a .44 minie ball, a chewed bullet and the business end of a spoon and two more Williams cleaners.


[attachment 206599 relics2.jpg]

 

[earthmansurfer]

Congrats on those finds (again).

In your first thread you stated the following settings: I use the Hi-Pro program with the RX at 10 and Sensitivity at 65 and I had the SEF 10X12 coil. Recovery delay at 90.
You still using those settings? You are getting really really good depth for those settings. Is the soil so bad or ???

How do you like that SEF coil? Gary at Gary's detecting had a some really nice things to say about that coil regarding how quiet it runs.

Last week I tried my v3i on a freshly worked field, the soil conditions were very dry, the V3 really didn't like these conditions I tried everything to settle the machine down including different stock coils but nothing worked, the false signals became to much for my patience.
I remember many moons back I had the same problem on this site with the Minelab Explorer, by chance I was given a SEF coil to try and the difference was quite noticeable, this was the reason for ordering a SEF V3 coil from Bulgaria, my only concern was what I had read on the forums about the SEF coils not being "V" rated and would not allow the machine to be run at higher sensitivity settings.
Well the coil arrived yesterday and the stuff on the forums is just total rubbish, instantly I could tell the coil is more stable than the stock coils and as steady as a rock at RX gain 15 in air...time for a quick test.

This coil made a massive improvement to stability, I would say at least 50% less false signals, with careful tweaking of the RX gain and sensitivity I could get the machine running smoothly even at filters 5.

I would say this coil is worth the investment, so far I have not carried out any depth tests so can not comment there, I would like to see a thinner coil wire, although I guess the thick wire used is probably going to last a long time.

 

[Larry (IL)]

The only change I made was the filter from 7.5 to 5 Band Pass, didn't notice anything different. The ground is bone dry and hard as concrete and luckily we were hunting in wide open fields where I could use my Lesche Raven shovel, I don't think my hand would have lasted very long if I had to dig by hand. I have used the SEF since the early days of the V and I just left it on although this would have been the perfect place to do some coil comparing. It gets plenty deep for me although it is not built for use with the V. RX10 is as high as I can get mine before getting very noisy and then overload, and in clean ground I can bump the Disc Sensitivity up to 75.... beyond that is more noise. The ground noise rejection is a little better with the SEF and it seems to be that some SEF coils are better than others so if you can test several before buying one, it would be great. Gary seems to be very lucky to get RX15 and you should offer to buy his coil.......... I have not heard of anyone being able to use Boost with an SEF either.

 

[flinthunter]

Nice finds. Sounds like a great place to hunt.

 

[earthmansurfer]

Larry, I don't know if this SEF coil is made by the same manufacturer that you have. Here is the link from Gary's site:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx They are made in Bulgaria.
I get a lot of falsing with my detector but now that I understand it, it's not such a big deal. They say SEF coils are good at quieting things down.

 

[Larry (IL)]

Detech is the only manufacture of SEF and Excelerator coils. The 5 inch DD coil is not a SEF if that is what you are referring to. The SEF coils are also known as Butterly coils. (Symmetric Electro-Magnetic Field) The smallest SEF coil that I am aware of is the 6X8 and I have tested that one. http://www.findmall.com/read.php?66,1340713

I had to edit your link since Gary is not a sponsor of Finds.

 

[earthmansurfer]

I was talking about the 10X12 SEF coil, didn't mean to confuse that with the 5" DD coil by Detech (Excelerator).

My link was not to Gary's but just to an outside firm selling the coil. I was wondering if it was the same coil you used. But no matter as I checked and it is a Detech coil.

Nice review on that coil btw!

 

[squirrel1]

My 10x12 SEF coil on my v3i I purchased in late March of this year will run rx gain at 15, TX boost on and no overload. Although, I don't use TX boost very often my v3i runs real quiet with rx gain at 15 here in middle Tn as long as there is not a lot of EMI. In most cases of high EMI I can run RX gain at 12 with a little frequency offset. My etrac with a 10x12 SEF runs quieter as well versus the stock coil.

 

[wvrick]

I never hunted relic but I think I'm going to give it a try, here in Southern WV there are lots of battle fields around. Nice Finds Larry!

 

[Rob (IL)]

But that is the problem with the SEF coils. You have one that works the way we hope they should work. Mine doesn't and neither does Larry's. If we could run through a batch and pick the best one it would be super. Most the SEF don't handle of 22.5 Khz. They run great on the other two frequencies. I can't run TX boost on any frequency. ROB

 

[Larry (IL)]

Good luck Rick, this relic hunting can get addictive.