Deus vs Minelab CTX/Deep Silver Coins

[DigDeepNow]

I’m a relative newbie to metal detecting. I’ve spent the last year using an AT-Pro and a Deus (11” coil). I’ve had some luck but limited success digging up silver coins from locations that have been hit hard by detectors. I’ve recently read accounts of detectorists using the Minelab CTX with big coils and digging deep silver coins. They report this being relatively easy with the coins “sounding good” and the CTX providing reliable VDI’s.

I’ve dug some deep silver with the Deus but the VDI hasn’t been helpful and the sound is faint and hard for me to recognize. I’ve dug them from relatively clean sites where I expected deeper silver. I’ve had no luck digging deeper coins in trashy areas/public parks.

I’m thinking of buying a CTX. Any thoughts from more experienced users

 

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[Loco-Digger]

In my area old coins are from 5 to 10 inches deep. For the trashy areas I use a sniper coil. When I started detecting back in 2014 I wanted to go deeper and thought that bigger was better so I asked for a 12" x 15" nel coil for my birthday. I have yet to dig a coin deeper than 10 to 10.5 inches. I have evolved to going out with smaller coils which has given me more coins than the bigger one ever did due to better target separation. There are treasures within the trashy areas. People have been detecting in my area since the 70's so virgin ground is very scarce, yet I do pull keepers among-st the trashier areas at older sites.

I did have a Deus for about a year and sold it. I mean it's a great machine and you can really tweak it settings, but it never hit on a target that My F75LTD would not have beeped on. many of my friends swing either the CTX or the XP Deus with great results. Most who use the Deus hunt in full tones and do not look at the VDI, they simply dig by tone.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

The Deus is not a trashy park hunting machine period! Its depth meter is all but useless, its target ID accuracy blows at depths where the Minelabs are still accurate. It can't reject a rusty bottle cap to save its life. And even when you get an ID the higher the frequency the more all targets are crunched together in a blob so hard to know what you are digging, a bit deeper and its target ID is jumping +-3 numbers making even more difficult. So why do I swing a Deus in a trashy park? Because what choice do I have after the trashy parks have been picked clean with Minelabs for the past 16 plus years. The Deus improved target separation in medium to heavy trash and iron will hit on masked targets the Minelabs won't, those will be the targets that are still out there to dig for the most part.

Lets talk deep coin hunting, I once swung a 15 inch WOT coil for 2 straight years, Minelab Explorer. You won't be using a coil that size in a trashy park with any degree of success. Find the light trash areas of the park sure, but the medium to heavy trash and iron its not happening. Its an open area hunter where nails and trash are spread out so the coil is never over more than 1 or 2 targets at a time. Remember its not just the 15 inch diameter of the coil, it will pick up shallow trash several inches off the outside parameter of the coil, you need elbow room for deep coin hunting with a big coil.

Then consider your local site conditions. I used to hunt in NY with the 15 inch WOT coil, targets are deep there, real deep. The first settlement was in the 1600's. Here on the west coast in the Portland/Vancouver area targets are just not that deep. They have only been buried for half as long and the soil has a lot of clay and glacial round rocks in it which keep targets from sinking. So I could rig my gear for deep target hunting but are there really any coins down there to dig? Doubtful.

Then consider your local soil mineralization. In my area we have really nasty volcanic magnetic black sand here in our soil, even the Minelabs have difficulty getting depth in this stuff. I found a WWII brass button honey hole recently. The buttons are about 1 inch in diameter and have been only about 7-8 inches deep yet the signals are terrible. In NY soil the Minelab Se Pro would have smacked those hard, yet here the signal was so bad I almost didn't dig the first one. It was about 1/2 coin, 1/4 mineralization, and 1/4 rusty iron even though no rusty iron was down there, that's the soil mineralization. I have dug 4 of them the past two days, all the same poor signal. Last night I switched from the 11 inch coil to the Minelab 8 inch coil thinking that might help with the soil mineralization...wrong! Even my 1 inch X1 probe can't deal with the mineralization the whole hole sounds like iron. So for deep hunting with big coils, its going to gobble that much more soil mineralization so that's something to consider before heading down that path.

Finally lets say you have some sites that lend themselves to deep coin hunting with big coils and there are some targets down there. Yes the Minelabs will give you better target ID at depth but it has its limits. I hunt DEEP with my Minelab Se Pro. Most people stop at a depth where the Minelabs are still giving decent target ID's, go deeper and at those depths target ID even on the Minelabs is out the window, similar to the Deus when it quits even guessing at an ID. Then its tones and target behavior as you sweep it from different angles. The tones will be a mix of soil, iron, and coin. Those brass buttons I dug yesterday from some angles were 70% iron tones, only giving me some coin/brass tones on 1 swing out of 3 or so. From other angles more coin/brass tones than iron. Really tried to imitate a rusty nail falsing.

But I'm watching the target behavior, does the targets location stay putt when sweeping from other angles or does the target seem to move to a new location, that's one trick to avoiding rusty nails falsing. The buttons stayed put as I circled them sweeping. When I get a bounce of an ID on the target did it land near a coin/brass location. I'm looking at an average, sweep it 10 or 20 times, out of the total how frequently is it trying to ID near a coin/brass ID.

Even deeper and even those techniques fail. Lets call it super deep, barely enough of a signal to just upset the coils balance and produce a smidgeon of a signal that disrupts the threshold. A false will do that, but falses don't repeat in the same location that's a target. I know not what the target is, but I know a target is there. Does the target mostly stay out of the rusty iron area of the screen, if so a good chance its not iron. But beyond that I don't have much target information. I once got a signal this bad on a NJ beach, when the Se Pro would even guess at a target ID on some swings, like the Deus at super depths even the Minelabs stop guessing at target ID, you sweep the target, hear it in the headphones but the cursor/target ID doesn't change. But on the swings where it did change, it was way down just above and to the right of nickel. The target was...wait for it...a pit of 40 giant silver Spanish 8 reale coins. Once I found the original signal my hunting partner and I dug a hole about 2 foot deep with shovels, then I stuck my coil down in the hole and it was screaming silver.

Anyway before you go spending a lot of money on a CTX give careful thought to your local site conditions, would hate for you to spend that kind of money and be disappointed. If others are hunting with the CTX in your area and making finds with them that would be encouraging.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

I used to think it was ALL about more depth and there are a percentage of deep targets out there most people miss. But after my 2 years swinging a 15 inch coil going for depth I returned to the 10/11 inch coils and dug a LOT more targets. For every deep target I was digging, I ended up digging many more with the standard coils that were trying to hide in the shadow of iron and trash, or co-located with an iron or trash target. It was more about target separation and pitiful target signals than depth.

 

[DigDeepNow]

thanks guys
really appreciate the detailed responses

 

[gene the machine]

my regular hunting partner swings a ctx while i use the Deus. some days he smokes me and other days i clean up. we have detected together for 4 years. we both know our machines pretty well. i can honestly say that they are equally great detectors and both have their place. site conditions make a big difference for sure. chose your detector and get good with it and you will do just fine. weight is a big factor for me and for many others so take that into consideration. most of all..... have fun. GL&HH

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Update: Deus vs Explorer Se Pro head to head on same site, same targets...

I found a brass button honey hole I hunted first with my Explorer Se Pro a few times this week and dug 4 of these brass buttons. Then last night I took the Deus to the same site. 9 inch HF coil, reactivity 1 for depth, sens 90, desc -6.4, running 14.4 kHz. Dug 4 more of the same brass buttons with the Deus.

Se Pro - Constant iron tones even when no iron is present its just the soil. Pump the coil iron, sweep the coil iron. Targets would try to peak through this constant iron soil signal resulting in pretty horrible target signals, difficult to tell if its iron falsing high or a target. Sweeping from different angles some suggested button, others suggest iron. I'm used to digging poor target signals but even I questioned digging the first button signal it was that bad. Se Pro in this site condition, unpleasant, it was work trying to get the machine to perform.

Deus - Much improved, soil was much quieter. Solid signals on all 4 buttons from multiple angles. Same depth as I dug the previous buttons with the Se Pro. Next I took a shot on some 1 way signals, high tones from one angle, mixed iron/high tones from 90 degrees, all were iron. Seems Deus is more reliable in these site conditions at correctly identifying iron vs Se Pro. Iron did fool me 3 times on Deus, one nail twisted into a curl and two small iron chunks that gave two way high tones I could not walk away from. Overall Deus far superior in these site conditions.

I'll amend my posts above with the following on the Deus. Depth meter...useful in ignoring the shallow targets as I was looking for targets at these button depths. Oddly at 14.4 kHz and reactivity 1 the Deus depth meter seemed more accurate and consistent. Reactivity 1 a LOT closer to what I'm used to on the Se Pro in terms of what deep targets sound like vs shallow. I didn't really use the Deus target ID, hunted by tones, it gave an ID on some buttons, others the --. Have been struggling with the Deus since I purchased it, last night was a pivotal moment with the machine. This site has virtually no crown caps which helped.

 

[gene the machine]

Charles: don't forget to try a identical program in 4K right next to your present one. If you get a good high tone check it with the 4K program. If the TID or sound stays about the same it's a crown cap, if the TID or tone drops it's diggable. Try it out. It works very very well.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Gene yes there are a few tricks to crowncaps on the Deus, the problem is when you are on a site when there is a crown cap every 1-2 swings this wastes a lot of time, on my other machine I simply reject crowncaps and that's that.

 

[CharlesUpstateNY]

Here's the buttons I have been digging, they are about 1 inch in diameter. Dug 4 with the Deus and 4 with the Se Pro. Deus also loves these deep rifle slugs and odd relics like that buckle.

 

[austin_luker]

I have said this before, It's not the machine but the user behind the machine. A good detector will only get you so far, hours in the field and hours researching new locations and doing the legwork for permissions.

 

[toasted]

Dont hunt areas poluted with crown caps and you will never need to use a Minelab. I have enough time on my Deus to know with a reasonable amount of certainty when Im over a deep coin, no matter the numbers if any at all. Im not a park hunter either though so modern trash is not a problem for me. I dont care what detector your swinging, a 10+” coin is going to be a iffy signal in most soils

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have no problem hitting coins at 16+ inches with my 3030 and 17 inch coil and with target trace on I can tell how many targets are there and which are conductive and which are ferrous under coil at the same time.

Sent from my P008 using Tapatalk

 

[austin_luker]

I have no problem hitting coins at 16+ inches with my 3030 and 17 inch coil and with target trace on I can tell how many targets are there and which are conductive and which are ferrous under coil at the same time.

Sent from my P008 using Tapatalk

Hows that arm feel after a 8 hour hunt with no breaks using that CTX

 

[DigDeepNow]

Thanks for all the help.
I'm going to let the Equinox come out and read the reviews.
Might have to give the CTX and it's FBS a try.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Hows that arm feel after a 8 hour hunt with no breaks using that CTX

I always hunt with a harness, use harness on all of my detectors.

 

[WaterScoop]

I always hunt with a harness, use harness on all of my detectors.

Does the harness “cut in to you” after an 8 hour day of up and down recovering targets? It would seem to me it would...

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Does the harness “cut in to you” after an 8 hour day of up and down recovering targets? It would seem to me it would...

No it doesn't. I have been using a harness for over 10 years, I want hunt with out one. Harness allows me to let go of detector, it hangs right by my side, coil down controls up allowing me to use both hands with my scoop. I have wore them many times from day break to dark.

 

[Toothpick]

As far as harnesses go ....I got a killer deal on one that was sold as a weed whacker type harness, less then half the cost of a dedicated detecting sling, from a farm supply store. Padded shoulder strap and a little bungee type action too.

I use it when I have a big coil on the Etrac.

 

[Iron Buzz]

As far as harnesses go ....I got a killer deal on one that was sold as a weed whacker type harness, less then half the cost of a dedicated detecting sling, from a farm supply store. Padded shoulder strap and a little bungee type action too.

I use it when I have a big coil on the Etrac.

Wow! That seems like that would work very well! Is it like any of these?