Vaquero or Tejon?

[BillZ]

I know, this question has been asked before many times.

I am really riding the fence on this one and maybe some of you who have used both can help me out.
Currently, I mainly use an XLT. Had it for the past year and its nice but hasn't really impressed me. I also own a Golden Sabre II that I haven't used for a while but will never get rid of because it was my first detector. I liked the discrimination of the GSII but the depth is lacking.

After seriously considering the E-trac, I decided to try something less expensive and more familiar so I plan to get another Tesoro.

My hunting is 90% in parks and woods. Mainly for coins and rings but one reason I decided to get another Tesoro is I found more of the interesting non-iron relics with a beep only machine. The XLT made it too easy to be lazy and avoid digging the non-coin signals. I also like to beach hunt once or twice a year.

The parks near me have all been well hunted so I want something that can seek out some of those deep and hard to pick out coins and rings. The ground mineralization around here (Maryland) seems to be moderate, not too bad and not great. I estimate that I will need a detector that can routinely hit targets 7+ inches deep to have a noticeable improvement over what I currently use and hopefully get below what most others have used in these areas before.

From what I have read on here and in other forums the Vaquero and Tejon seem to be the best choices for what I am looking for in a detector. My concerns are that the Vaquero may not be a noticeable improvement in depth over what I already have and the Tejon may be too much of an iron lover for those trashy old foundations in the woods.

Comments please...

 

[Craig]

Both detectors are great choices. I have the Tejon and have not had a problem with Iron trash. I am also thinking about getting the Vaquero.Never can have enough detectors

 

[hispanico]

Hello badger will give very good result with a 10x12 SEF Butterfly Coil, this coil mounting depth you won the cowboy or the badger.
Discrimination is perfect on both models.
The Tejon has a more difficult setting, the Vaquero is easier.
I have a Vaquero with this coil SEF and fought with more expensive machines and many times defeated.
I wish you a happy treasure hunting.
Pardon my English is google translator.

 

[Silver Fox]

I have had Whites XLT, M6, Garrett 2500, 1500, 1350, 550, Minelab Safari. I currently own Vaquero and Teknetics Omega 8000. I have own the Vaquero for a few months and really liking it. Just got my Omega and I think I will really like it as well. I have a test garden with coins buried from 4" to 9". The Vaquero hits on the coins 4" to 6" real good but will not hit on the 8 and 9" coins using stock coil. The Omega would hit on the 4 to 6" coins but not as good with its stock coil as the Vaquero. I bought a !!" dd coil for the Omega and now it will hit on all the coins in my test garden. When I had the M6 I put a dd coil on it and it did a pretty good job also. I am planing on getting the 12" x 10" widescan coil for my Vaquero and I think it will really boost its performance. I am still learning these two detectors and liking them more every time I take them out. I really like the simplicity of them and still getting the depth I want. I mostly hunt the woods, sometimes the parks. Most of my finds are in the 2" to 6" range. I did find a half dime with the XLT when I had it, and it was around 9 to 9 1/2" down, but I think everything must of been just right to find it that deep. My brother has a Minelab SE Pro which will go deep, but as we have talked, most of his and my finds seem to fall in the 2" to 9" range. Right now winter is coming on but I have been hunting an old fort with the Vaquero and I have pulled out 28 civil war bullets and 3 buttons. When I started metal detecting I was around 20, now that I am 56 I'm going for the simplicity and light weight machines and still getting the depth I want. Now with that said, the performance of these detectors is in the soil where I live here in Kansas. The only true way to learn about a metal detector is get and use it in your soil and situation. Bottom line regardless of what detector you get you have to learn that detector and when you feel confident with it you will really enjoy this hobby and find a lot of things.

 

[Canewrap]

I started out almost 4 years ago now with a Tesoro Cibola and used the daylights out of that machine and got to know it somewhat. But, I also bought a Whites MXT and started liking the TID. Since then I've been through 4 different TID machines, sold my Cibola, but now I'm back to Tesoro (Tejon) because I love the way they pinpoint and while I dig more trash I also seem to dig more good targets. IMHO TID is ok for school yards and real trashy areas where the good stuff is shallow, but it you're going to be woods hunting where stuff could be a little deep, you need a machine like a Tesoro that will pinpoint with razor sharp accuracy and not force you to be cutting all the tree roots in a 6 inch circle to get at your target. The Golden would be an ideal machine for what you describe.