Took the Elite for a quick hunt down the street to our old community club house that was built in the early 30's. The grassy hunting area is about 50X100 ft. I have taken just about every detector I've owned in the past 25 years down there and the last old coin I pulled from there was about 7 years ago with a Fisher CZ 6a. I was shocked when I got a faint but repeatable signal that sounded sweet when doing the wiggle and out pops the 42 Merc at about 8-9 inches. That is excellent depth in my mineralized ground and is the deepest dime I've ever dug on land. The silver Rosie and the rest of the coins where also in the 8 inch range. This was with the S-8 coil and I used the coil pump method to set my sensitivity which ended up between 12.00 and 1:00 with a steady threshold. I need to take the 10 inch coil down there.
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The Sovereign is officially the deepest Detector I've ever used.
- Thread starter crazyman
- Start date
Steve, I've been detecting for many years with different detectors so I rarely get this excited about a detector. As far as depth in our ground I haven't used any detector through the years that had any big advantage over any of the others until today. I have been putting in a lot of time learning the Sovereign and it's starting to pay off. This site that I hunted quickly between the rains today hasn't had a good target pulled out of it in some time. It's only two blocks from my house and I wasn't expecting to find anything but It has a lot of iron trash and I was bored and just wanted to play with some different settings for working around iron. All the coins were at least 8 inches deep with a repeatable signal. You just don't dig dimes at that depth in my area. The CZ's will hit coins deep but they would come up as a solid iron signal at these depths in my ground. These dimes today had sweet high tones and there was no doubt about whether to dig or not. I'm impressed.
I have a Sov also and it gets good depth. If your soil isn't terrible you should try a Nautilus 2B. I use Nautilus also and it will make a 10" coin sound like it is on the surface. In good soil you can expect an honest 16"-18" on coins with the 2B and Nautilus detectors are selling at Very good used prices now.
Steve, I was hoping to get a hunt in today but the rain was coming down in sheets. I would put in a lot of time with your new Excalibur as they are basically the same as the Sovereign operational and performance wise from what I understand. I haven't used the GT. Some think they are a bit better and others like the older models. I'm going to be getting another Sovereign but haven't made up my mind yet on which model. I don't need the added features on the GT like ground tracking in all metal, silent search and the iron mask on/off switch. I keep going back and forth the iron mask on/off feature though. I'm still experimenting with the auto sensitivity vs.manual in heavy iron. Auto runs smoother in iron with noticeable less iron falsing but I'm not sure on how much depth is lost in auto in bad ground if any. So far I'm leaning towards another Elite. Even though I don't need the single tone option anymore I do like the noise cancel feature in some cases. Let me know when you get ready to head over my way for a hunt.
Crazy,
I will get some time and familiarization in with the Excal. I will be able to get over there sometime in late January or February. I am tied down here for a while. By that time I should know this "buzz box" quite a bit better. I think I will get the tone CD too. Each night I spend 5 or so minutes up in my shop running various metals and alloys including iron and steel past the coil to get the tones down. That 5 minutes a night is already paying off. I need to get it in the water and over ground too though. I will let you know when I can get away from here. Mean while keep us posted on your new found appreciation for the Sov.
An interesting note regarding the Tiger Shark, both adjusted exactly the same way inside and out. One is over twice as deep than the other? Off topic but interesting! These TS machines hit hard on gold in fresh water and fresh water sand beaches. I have not tried them in the salt yet but hear they don't work on our salt beaches, that is why I picked up an Excal.
I will probably be looking for a Sov now. Thanks! ): Do you still use your Whites for the initial hunts over new areas?
Best Regards,
Steve
I will get some time and familiarization in with the Excal. I will be able to get over there sometime in late January or February. I am tied down here for a while. By that time I should know this "buzz box" quite a bit better. I think I will get the tone CD too. Each night I spend 5 or so minutes up in my shop running various metals and alloys including iron and steel past the coil to get the tones down. That 5 minutes a night is already paying off. I need to get it in the water and over ground too though. I will let you know when I can get away from here. Mean while keep us posted on your new found appreciation for the Sov.
An interesting note regarding the Tiger Shark, both adjusted exactly the same way inside and out. One is over twice as deep than the other? Off topic but interesting! These TS machines hit hard on gold in fresh water and fresh water sand beaches. I have not tried them in the salt yet but hear they don't work on our salt beaches, that is why I picked up an Excal.
I will probably be looking for a Sov now. Thanks! ): Do you still use your Whites for the initial hunts over new areas?
Best Regards,
Steve
Steve, I will probably keep my XL Pro. I just can't bring myself to sell it. Not sure how much use it will get once I add the meter to my Elite plus I'm going to pick up a second Sovereign. I'm not sure just why things clicked this time with me and the Sovereign after trying them in the past. Maybe I'm older and more patient and actually took the time to learn it this time. It works better than any detector I've used on our nasty salt water beaches. I had no problem digging coins down to 15 inches on the beach. It did better than expected at a couple of ghost town sites but you do need to have a lot of patience with the Sovereign at these iron infested sites because it forces you to slow to a craw and investigate more signals than you would normally do with other machines. It worked though and I pulled some nice finds mixed in with iron. The last short hunt was the first time I used the Sovereign in an area that I knew the coins would be deeper than normal and I know that in some parts of the country a dime at close to nine inches is no big deal but it my ground it's above average depth for any machine. I'm thinking it might go even deeper because the dime along with all the other deep coins gave small but nice repeatable tones. One other thing is that the Sovereign is not affected by our hot rocks which can be a pain with most detectors.When testing your Excalibur in the shop don't be put off with the depth in air tests. I know you own at least 2 or more detectors that will air test much better than the Excalibur or Sovereign but I know for a fact that those same detectors are not as deep in actual ground. The Sovereign seems to like our bad ground..
Hi Crazy,
Thanks for the pointers. I am doing the air tests daily for tone training. Thanks for the info on the depth in air test being virtually irrelevant as an "a b test" between the Whites and the ML BBS units. I had read about that somewhere before but it was a bit vague in my mind. The only draw back comparing the Excal to the whites is weight. But then again the Whites I have used in the water are actually land machines!
Have fun!
Best Regards,
Steve
Thanks for the pointers. I am doing the air tests daily for tone training. Thanks for the info on the depth in air test being virtually irrelevant as an "a b test" between the Whites and the ML BBS units. I had read about that somewhere before but it was a bit vague in my mind. The only draw back comparing the Excal to the whites is weight. But then again the Whites I have used in the water are actually land machines!
Have fun!
Best Regards,
Steve
Crazyman,I'm glad you are doing well with the Elite.Just got back from one of my neighborhood parks that's been pounded with just about every detector you can think of including my Explorer XS and ll.After about an hour hunt only two coins a dime and penny grand total of 11 cents,but the dime a 1935 Mercury and 1925 wheat.The Sovereign is fun to use and has always produced well in worked out parks.Search coil used the BBS 800. HH Ron
I have used them all and they all are good and found good stuff with them all with great depth. The Favorites to me is the XS, XS2 and the GT. The GT I get more accurate ID reading on my 180 meter on the deeper coins, but also get a little more iron falsing as I feel it has a bit more power over the others. Myself I felt the 2 Elites I tried the coins sounded deeper than they were and didn't like the control configuration as they were in a different place than any of the others were.
Those new to the Sovereign and wants to see if they have the patience to use one I recomend the XS or the XS 2 with the 180 meter as they are selling very reasonable and will be easier to use than the GT and yet do as well for a person new to the Sovereigns.If this is not the detector for you they can be resold with no loss or very little. After you have learned them well the GT will be a bit better for those that understand the Sovereigns. I do feel the 8 inch coinsearch coil is the best to learn the Sovereigns also.
Remember the Sovereigns has to be used slow, hates air so keep the coil close to the ground so any air test will be bad too. Have patience, be willing to learn more each time out with it as it is a great detector and will do very good for those that use it and understand it. This is not a detector for those that want to spend a hour a week using it, but those serious about detecting and want the good items other have left in some of those so called worked out areas.
Good Luck.
Rick
Those new to the Sovereign and wants to see if they have the patience to use one I recomend the XS or the XS 2 with the 180 meter as they are selling very reasonable and will be easier to use than the GT and yet do as well for a person new to the Sovereigns.If this is not the detector for you they can be resold with no loss or very little. After you have learned them well the GT will be a bit better for those that understand the Sovereigns. I do feel the 8 inch coinsearch coil is the best to learn the Sovereigns also.
Remember the Sovereigns has to be used slow, hates air so keep the coil close to the ground so any air test will be bad too. Have patience, be willing to learn more each time out with it as it is a great detector and will do very good for those that use it and understand it. This is not a detector for those that want to spend a hour a week using it, but those serious about detecting and want the good items other have left in some of those so called worked out areas.
Good Luck.
Rick
The only places I've taken the Elite to so far have been my old sites that I've pounded to death over the years with other detectors and so far the Elite has found coins that I missed at each one of these sites. It's been raining here so I'm itching to get out again. I have another site that I've hunted through the years and if I find something there I will be even more impressed with the Sovereign. It's an old one room school house built in 1881 that is still in use today as a community club. It was a virgin site when I found it and I pulled many old coins from there. I've taken some hunting buddies there as well over the years and the place has been hunted to death with Whites, Fishers and Tesoros. The last 7-8 times I've hunted there not a single target was found, not even junk so I'm anxious to see what the Elite finds there.
I made the same mistake many people do when trying the Sovereign for the first time, giving up to soon. All the things I hated about the Sovereign on earlier attempts are now the things I like most. What I thought were it's weak points I now see as it's strong points when hunting in trashy or iron infested sites. The threshold was one of the things I hated most about the Sovereign at these sites but now see it as it's best feature. Being able to pull a good tone from mixed bad tones and nulls is starting to become the norm now. Those deep targets that were missed by previous detectors are also getting easier using some of the excellent tips from long time Sovereign users on this site. I've always had two or more detectors each for specific types of hunting like beach, ghost towns and old parks but for the first time in many years I'm heading towards using one detector for all my hunting.
Critterhunter
New member
For whatever reason I've read that the Explorer doesn't handle some beaches as well as the Sovereign. Something about BBS versus FBS also seems to indicate that BBS (Sovereign) hits harder on gold. Never heard any reasonable explaination for this, though. You would think that the Explorer's higher frequencies would make it hit harder on gold.