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What an eye opener!

M

Mtnmn

New member
Got the chance yesterday to go coin shooting with a friend of mine who is a world-class metal detectorist ($12,000+ just in face value of clad and silver alone over the past 6 yrs.). I naively thought because I had up-graded to a Safari this past spring, I would be able to keep up with him and his beat XLT. Well I did find the oldest coin (a "47" Wheat) and the deepest ( a 6" deep dime, we have bad ground), but everything else was all him to say the least. We hit four sites all together and he out hunted me on all four with ease. At the end of the day, he totalled almost $14.00 in clad (we found no silver or rings), while I totalled close to $6.00 which was my best day of the year (we live in a very low populated area with few decent sites). Another words he was about 2 1/2 times better than me, what an eye-opener that was! We did have a great time and beautiful weather to hunt in, so it was well worth the experience.
 
The XLT is good metal detector, it has an faster recovery time and he would be able to cover more ground then the Safari. The problem with the XLT it loves iron bottle caps and has trouble finding coins in iron. Believe me I still own my XLT. Two years after I bought the XLT I bought an Minelab Sovereign XS and I compared the two detectors. The Sovereign clean the XLT's clock when it came to finding deep iron masked coins. I was able to find deep buried silver coins with my Sovereign that the XLT would not give a good signal on. When it came to finding clad coins the XLT beats the Sovereign hands down because you were able to cover more ground. The Safari has a slow recovery and goes deep and will find the deep older coins and is a lot better then XLT in iron infested ground. When it comes to speed forget it you have to work it slower or you are not find anything. There is a trade off with every metal detector and when I use my XLT it is when I want to do some clad and jewelry plinking. The XLT will excel at this type of detecting. But when I am looking for deep old silver and copper coins I am using my Quattro or Sovereign XS.

John
 
Seldom does it boil down to what kind of detector is used in hunts like yours. Experience and knowledge of your machine almost always wins out. :biggrin: The key point is that you had a great time and that is what this great hobby is all about.
 
Did you notice him doing anything different than you that might have made the difference? In other words, did you have a learning experience?
 
n/t
 
I hope you watched and learned too. Coin shooting is an art just like every other kind of hunting. Knowing where the high traffic areas are. Knowing your detector. Quick pinpointing. And how to dig a quick nice hole. All of it comes into play.
 
I'd like to watch an experienced cladstabber work a field someday...just to see if they have a sense about it, or can quickly figure out the "pattern" all areas have...sometimes multiple patterns, depending upon if the sidelines are rotated like on some soccer fields. Let us know if you observed anything that would be helpful to share..
Mud
 
John was right, he did seem to be able to cover more straight ahead ground than me because of the XLT's faster recovery time and because the Safari seemed to be hitting on deeper coins, I had to spend more time on my plugs than he did. Another problem I ran into was his Pro-Pointer had at least a half inch more depth than mine did causing me to spend more time locating my coins in those deeper plugs. As far as technique went, I noticed that he had a short compact swing which was no wider than his shoulders and his swing was also a little slower than mine too. I did check several of his coin hits and there wasn't one that my Safari didn't hit on and also give the correct reading, so that wasn't a problem. It basically came down to all the things you guys mentioned above and even he himself mentioned that he was having an exceptional day on quarters. The XLT must also be really hot on nickels as he found a ton of them while hoping to hit on a gold ring. Today I took the XT-70 out on a short hunt using the 10.5" DD MF coil, only finding about a $1.45 in clad, but 7 were nickels. Since he and I are going on another hunt this coming week, after today's results intend to try the XT-70 next time and even though all of today's finds were shallow, hope to at least stay with him in the nickel department as the Safari isn't the nickel buster that the XT-70 is.
 
Basically I said this in a different posy.
It is a lot the indian and NOT the bow.
Speed,concentration and just plain luck means a lot.
 
I'm willing to bet that as you get more time in field like him you will be on par with him as well ok. Best Wishes. PEACE:RONB :thumbup:
 
I can attest the experience part... my Dad beats me when clad hunting more often than not!
 
Your a GREAT photographer, you must have a very expensive camera. Or,your a wonderful cook, you must have an expensive set of pots and pans.

Its the skill the person has in knowing his machine and a bit on how good the machine is.
 
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