Menu
What's new
Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!

Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.

DeepTech

Tesoro Stingray II, first impressions.

A

Anonymous

Guest
I picked up a NOS(New Old Stock) Tesoro Stingray II w/ stock 8" coil from a dealer. Got it Friday, put new batteries in, took it outside GB'd it, and both air tested, and tested against surface targets. With Disc set at 2.5, just above nail reject, I was a little taken aback by the results. Nickel, dime, quarter all hit at 6" to 7" but no more. A small gold chain would not hit unless stuffed up into the coil hole, and only very erratically, and even reducing Disc to zero didn't help. All metal also did no better.
Today I set the internal controls to Vol Max and Sensitivity to 75%. I then did a quick air test against the CZ-20 and a BH QDII. All results are in inches and outdoors with max sens on CZ-20 & BH, Disc on Stingray at 2.5, 0(zero) on CZ, nail reject on BH.
Test targets and result table are pictured below.
After 8 hours of field use in the last two days, both dry sand and wading, several things are apparent.
1. A depth demon she ain
 
Was this in salt mode or regular disc. mode?
Thanks
Tommy
 
What is recommended is to use the T/R mode in saltwater. But no, this was in VLF Motion Disc.
BarnacleBill
 
My Tiger Shark had a salt mode and it did make some airtest differences.(less) Have you tried it on the saltwater beach yet? I would love like to
know the results!
Thanks
Tommy
 
I am 95% a lake hunter, only go to coast when lakes freeze. And to be honest the CZ-20 is my weapon of choice there, I would probably only take the Stingray to check it out for grins, not serious hunting.
BarnacleBill
 
Bill,
Why don't you use the CZ20 for your lake hunting? I've heard nothing but good about it for that.
I'm trying to decide on a new fresh water hunter as well. Thinking about the Tiger, Wader, Infinium or CZ20.
Good Hunting,
<STRONG><EM>Otto...</EM></STRONG>
 
the same results you have posted. I found that I could get the depth up a little by setting the sensitivity for each site. I know that's a pain with the adjustment being inside the case but it does help a little. The 10.5" coil also picks up a little depth and of course makes for faster coverage. Setting the sensitivity for max depth would give me 1" on the stock coil and 1.5" on the 10.5" coil on a real fine gold chain. After using my Stingray II for 3 years I went to the Fisher 1280x and my gold finds doubled in the same beat up beaches. Used the 1280x for one year and went to the Excalibur 800 and my finds went up considerably from there. The Excal does just OK on small gold chains but more than makes up for it with deep ring finds the Stingray II won't even see. By the way I only hunt fresh water beaches. I think your Stingray will do better than your CZ20 on the REAL small stuff but the CZ20 will hammer the Stingray II on deep gold etc.
Good Hunting, ArtWI
 
Hi Otto,
The CZ-20 has been my main lake hunting machine and I love it dearly. She will detect silver and copper coins deep, very deep. Silver jewelry? Last summer I took 22 silver rings out of a honey hole in 4 hours!
Some complain she likes deep iron, and will ID low tone iron on targets out of Disc range, like most CZ's. But this is easy to overcome by simply kicking a few inches of sand away with your foot and re-sweep. If tone stays low most likely iron, if tone jumps up, dig!
But she has two noted weaknesses, number one being lack of sensitivity to small gold, and in heavy iron she will mask pretty badly. It is a slow sweep machine meant to be used with the drag of the water on the coil and shaft. I have experimented with adjacent target masking and the results are not encouraging.
Available controls and layout are just about perfect. The VCO pinpoint is a work of art, pinpoint button placement is good for either stem or hip mount. The tone ID is great and the audio nuances are pretty good, but could use some refinement. However, when you hit a target the report is fast and dramatic, especially in audio boost mode.
So the Stingray is meant to overcome two problems; better small gold response, and I have many areas where wooden docks have rotted away and there are carpets of rusty nails. I know there are targets in those locations, but it is futile to take the CZ-20 in there, believe me I've tried. But the Stingray looks to be just the ticket for iron. I wish she had more depth and tone ID, but since Tesoro has not produced a new underwater machine with their HOT circuitry this is where I'm at. I wish Tesoro would make a copy of the CZ-20 for freshwater only, gee how many times have I said that?
BarnacleBill
 
The CZ-20 w/ 8 inch coil does do quite well on deep, medium to large size gold rings, as can be seen in my depth table she was no slouch on the thin gold ring. The ring by the way is 10K 1.40 grams.
I considered the 1280 and I guess you could call siblings HH's, but no GB concerned me. I have low mineralization beaches and others you could stake a mining claim on.
I have debated myself on the Excal for some time, but the reports of leaks, broken cables, and high repair costs, coupled with at times what some report as not very friendly customer service, has kept me away. I was ready to write a check for the new Sov GT, but rear mounted controls with no handle mounted pinpoint switch? That left me questioning the judgement of those that run Minelab.
I had considered buying a Cibola or Vaquero, and sticking them in a Pelican or Otterbox, but I bought a Hookah so I need a machine that will dive and not have too much buoyancy. Besides the Stingray was such a decent price I couldn't let it get away. So my current plans are to hit the nail carpeted areas with the Stingray, and then go over all other areas with both machines, 1-2 punch style.
BarnacleBill
 
Bill I own a Tiger shark,I adjust my sensitivity for fine gold chains by max your sen then start bringing it down til you cant here it. then start bringing sen back up till you here chain again leave it there, Im not an expert but I have many chains and over 80 pieces of gold in those cold n.h. lakeslast year hope this helps H Hunting D tyler
 
I have to experiment some more. Sens is at about 75% right now, so I'll see how high she'll remain stable. Don't want to lose the excellent audio quality, disc, and target separation that it is showing now.
If you found 80 gold pieces in lakes last year, consider yourself the freshie Mel Fisher. I can't even imagine how much foil you dug to reach those numbers!
BarnacleBill
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top