Willee - Texas
Well-known member
My new Pirate Pro was delivered today so off to the beach with it for a quick run about.
My first impression was that the Pirate Pro was detecting a bit deeper than the Wader.
Least that is what I thought.
Didnt do any heads up comparisons at the beach.
When I got back home I buried a dime down 7" in my back yard and tried that.
Now this is all subjective and is nothing more than a relative test between the Wader and the Pirate Pro in the same soil conditions for the same target at a measured depth. Draw your own conclusions from what I am about to report.
Both the Wader and the Pirate Pro worked and sounded much the same.
Both were set to Max volume, Disc at 2, and sensitivity as high as it would go (just a bit of chatter).
Set up just like I would using it at the beach.
Both the Wader and the Pirate pro would detect the dime at 7".
Not a strong signal but repeatable and one I would have most likely recovered.
Well not to let the opportunity go by I decided to see how my other detectors would do on that same target.
The big surprise was my Tesoro Cibolo with the 9" stock coil.
This detector will air test super HOT ... it could not find that dime no mater where I set the sensitivity, threshold, or disc.
It would hit it in all metal mode (pinpoint) but not in discriminate even with the disc knob all the way to zero.
Next was the White's BeachHunter ID with the custom 10" Excellerater coil.
Yep ... it would find the dime but not as strongly as I thought it would.
It had trouble deciding to flash a green or a yellow light.
All metal mode was a solid hit.
Here is a big surprise ... my Excalibur II with the 8" coil would NOT find that dime in disc mode.
Played with the sensitivity and threshold and it would just not produce a signal I would have recovered.
It would detect it in all metal mode (pinpoint).
Bounty Hunter Big Bud Pro ... nope ... not a peep in Disc mode but would detect it in all metal.
Bounty Hunter Pioneer 505 ... could hit it but it was an iffy signal ... it wanted to give it a low tone ... dont know if I would have recovered that one.
OK time to bring out the big guns ...
Sovereign XS-A2 with 10" BBS coil.
Even with the sensitivity at 25% it hit the dime very solid.
No doubt about that being a good target.
Minelab E-Track ... yep ... as expected it was a solid hit.
White's V3 ... I dont know ... it made repeatable sounds ... but not a strong hit.
Could be the way I had it set up ... Haven't used this detector much.
Minelab Explorer XS with a 15" WOT coil ... Sensitivity at 15 ... solid and repeatable hit.
What else would you have expected from this setup?
I guess the good news is that both the Wader and the Pirate Pro found the dime with a weak but repeatable signal that I would have recognized as a good target.
They preformed better in heads up comparison to some detectors costing much more.
The big surprise was they both performed BETTER than the Excalibur II with the 8" coil ... ON THIS TARGET.
Like I said ... you draw your own conclusions ... in the salt water things might be much different.
Now I need to take them out to the salt water and test them against the Excalibur II again ... just to put my mind at rest.
Willee
My first impression was that the Pirate Pro was detecting a bit deeper than the Wader.
Least that is what I thought.
Didnt do any heads up comparisons at the beach.
When I got back home I buried a dime down 7" in my back yard and tried that.
Now this is all subjective and is nothing more than a relative test between the Wader and the Pirate Pro in the same soil conditions for the same target at a measured depth. Draw your own conclusions from what I am about to report.
Both the Wader and the Pirate Pro worked and sounded much the same.
Both were set to Max volume, Disc at 2, and sensitivity as high as it would go (just a bit of chatter).
Set up just like I would using it at the beach.
Both the Wader and the Pirate pro would detect the dime at 7".
Not a strong signal but repeatable and one I would have most likely recovered.
Well not to let the opportunity go by I decided to see how my other detectors would do on that same target.
The big surprise was my Tesoro Cibolo with the 9" stock coil.
This detector will air test super HOT ... it could not find that dime no mater where I set the sensitivity, threshold, or disc.
It would hit it in all metal mode (pinpoint) but not in discriminate even with the disc knob all the way to zero.
Next was the White's BeachHunter ID with the custom 10" Excellerater coil.
Yep ... it would find the dime but not as strongly as I thought it would.
It had trouble deciding to flash a green or a yellow light.
All metal mode was a solid hit.
Here is a big surprise ... my Excalibur II with the 8" coil would NOT find that dime in disc mode.
Played with the sensitivity and threshold and it would just not produce a signal I would have recovered.
It would detect it in all metal mode (pinpoint).
Bounty Hunter Big Bud Pro ... nope ... not a peep in Disc mode but would detect it in all metal.
Bounty Hunter Pioneer 505 ... could hit it but it was an iffy signal ... it wanted to give it a low tone ... dont know if I would have recovered that one.
OK time to bring out the big guns ...
Sovereign XS-A2 with 10" BBS coil.
Even with the sensitivity at 25% it hit the dime very solid.
No doubt about that being a good target.
Minelab E-Track ... yep ... as expected it was a solid hit.
White's V3 ... I dont know ... it made repeatable sounds ... but not a strong hit.
Could be the way I had it set up ... Haven't used this detector much.
Minelab Explorer XS with a 15" WOT coil ... Sensitivity at 15 ... solid and repeatable hit.
What else would you have expected from this setup?
I guess the good news is that both the Wader and the Pirate Pro found the dime with a weak but repeatable signal that I would have recognized as a good target.
They preformed better in heads up comparison to some detectors costing much more.
The big surprise was they both performed BETTER than the Excalibur II with the 8" coil ... ON THIS TARGET.
Like I said ... you draw your own conclusions ... in the salt water things might be much different.
Now I need to take them out to the salt water and test them against the Excalibur II again ... just to put my mind at rest.
Willee
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