I decided I was going to take my new Golden Saber to the park a couple blocks up this morning. Wanted to get there early enough to miss the kids in the tot lots. Other then messing around in my backyard, this is the first real hunt with this machine. I set the machine up to reject everything up to nickle and the tones to ring low on nickel/tabs and high on pennies and above before I left. I got there and hit the huge tot lot first. Well looked like someone hit it before me and I got there at 8:00. There were holes where you could see someone had dug and left the bark dust laying out. I went around and cleaned up all their messes. The city has voted twice on closing the parks to MDing so I didn't want any ammo for them.
I did manage to get a quarter, 4-5 pennies and a dime from it before heading out to the main park. I have to say I am really impressed with this machine. Pts were ringing low every time but a few damaged ones and coins range solid and high. One thing I will check the next time I start a hunt is the settings. Somehow I bumped the one knob and disc out nickles. I seen a nickel on the ground and machine won't react. I reset the machine and came away with few nickles the last hour of the hunt. I managed 52 coins, about 20 PTs and some long pieces of aluminum fencing that range high. Other then that I could have cherry picked with the machine all day long for coins only.
Now, it might not be the deepest machine out there. I did pull a dime out about 5" that rang solid and pretty loud. I got a penny at about 5-6" that came in a solid hit both ways but a pretty weak tone. I am using Garrett headphones right now and when I get my Sun Rays repaired I think those will help with a little more volume for depth. I decided because the ground is so dry and brittle I won't dig anything I thought was deeper then a few inches. So I did pass up a lot of weak but solid signals I will get when the rains come. I have no doubt it will hit a quarter at 6-7" and a dime at 6" with the 8" coil. I wanted to try the 7" today as I knew digging deep targets would be out for this trip.
The machine was about flawless for separating nickels/ taps from coins. Separation is pretty good and the recovery rate isn't that bad either. I don't think I missed a coin a passed the coil over. Pinpointing was so good I could stick the probe under the edge of the coin to pop it loose. Battery life seems to be great as I have about 20 hours on this set and its still a solid one tone battery check. The machine is pretty light and I didn't have any trouble swinging it for those 4 hours.
So Some pros I like about the machine:
I really like the low tone on nickels/tab and high tones on coins. The machine is pretty light and well balanced to me. Battery life is good and I can even get a lot of time out of batteries I take out of the XLT. the machine is simple to set up and use. I really like the fact that I don't have a screen, graphs and 200 tones to look at and listen to to know what I have under the coils. The machine is very well built and I really like the metal box compared to lactic as its small and the extra weight doesn't really tired you out.
Some cons:
I do wish it had a volume control on it as I have bad hearing and usually crank up all my machines. A little more volume might help bring out some deeper targets also. The only other thing I would like to see on this machine is a manual Ground Balance. I noticed the machine wants to scream when i pick the coil up more then a couple inches and really screams when I lay it down to dig. I think if it was a little more GBed I would also get a little more depth when I need it.
But i couldn't be more happy with the machine. Its a real coin sweeper and I have to doubts it will hammer any gold I come across. It sure likes those deep PTs and nickles so gold should sound off even better.
I did manage to get a quarter, 4-5 pennies and a dime from it before heading out to the main park. I have to say I am really impressed with this machine. Pts were ringing low every time but a few damaged ones and coins range solid and high. One thing I will check the next time I start a hunt is the settings. Somehow I bumped the one knob and disc out nickles. I seen a nickel on the ground and machine won't react. I reset the machine and came away with few nickles the last hour of the hunt. I managed 52 coins, about 20 PTs and some long pieces of aluminum fencing that range high. Other then that I could have cherry picked with the machine all day long for coins only.
Now, it might not be the deepest machine out there. I did pull a dime out about 5" that rang solid and pretty loud. I got a penny at about 5-6" that came in a solid hit both ways but a pretty weak tone. I am using Garrett headphones right now and when I get my Sun Rays repaired I think those will help with a little more volume for depth. I decided because the ground is so dry and brittle I won't dig anything I thought was deeper then a few inches. So I did pass up a lot of weak but solid signals I will get when the rains come. I have no doubt it will hit a quarter at 6-7" and a dime at 6" with the 8" coil. I wanted to try the 7" today as I knew digging deep targets would be out for this trip.
The machine was about flawless for separating nickels/ taps from coins. Separation is pretty good and the recovery rate isn't that bad either. I don't think I missed a coin a passed the coil over. Pinpointing was so good I could stick the probe under the edge of the coin to pop it loose. Battery life seems to be great as I have about 20 hours on this set and its still a solid one tone battery check. The machine is pretty light and I didn't have any trouble swinging it for those 4 hours.
So Some pros I like about the machine:
I really like the low tone on nickels/tab and high tones on coins. The machine is pretty light and well balanced to me. Battery life is good and I can even get a lot of time out of batteries I take out of the XLT. the machine is simple to set up and use. I really like the fact that I don't have a screen, graphs and 200 tones to look at and listen to to know what I have under the coils. The machine is very well built and I really like the metal box compared to lactic as its small and the extra weight doesn't really tired you out.
Some cons:
I do wish it had a volume control on it as I have bad hearing and usually crank up all my machines. A little more volume might help bring out some deeper targets also. The only other thing I would like to see on this machine is a manual Ground Balance. I noticed the machine wants to scream when i pick the coil up more then a couple inches and really screams when I lay it down to dig. I think if it was a little more GBed I would also get a little more depth when I need it.
But i couldn't be more happy with the machine. Its a real coin sweeper and I have to doubts it will hammer any gold I come across. It sure likes those deep PTs and nickles so gold should sound off even better.
