Ok, you guys with the 6" coil, are you happy with depth? iron? on the fence to buy

dirtlooter

Gold Member
Jun 5, 2014
8,889
13,497
mid western ARK
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Detector(s) used
XP Deus with 9"LF and 9" HF Coils and 600 Equinox with stock and 6" coils
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
Ok, you guys with the 6" coil, are you happy with depth? iron? on the fence to buy

I am so close to buying the 6" coil. I have heard of iron falsing more with it but really how badly? part of the reason I am looking at it is to cut down some on the weight. My right arm is considerably weaker now due to a torn rotary cuff (from bad fall). my bicep is screaming at me a lot quicker with the Nox than the Deus. I use which ever one is fully ready to go but my trips are shorter with the Nox. what do you like and what do you dislike. I am looking at using it primarily instead of the 11 inch. Because of my right foot and my back, I no longer can cover the terrain that I used to so it is pretty much a slow go for me anyways. my primary sites are either very trashy or in some areas just lightly trashy. I understand that the coil coverage will be a lot smaller. So, how happy are you with yours? Thanks for your time and input. Jerry
 

Schuder3

Jr. Member
Jan 12, 2019
90
600
Virginia
Detector(s) used
Minelab Explorer SE Pro and Minelab Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
dirtlooter, look at my last two post in todays finds. They were both done with the 6 inch coil. Park 2, sens 20, iron bias 2, recovery speed 6. I do not think you can do any better in high trash areas and the coil is a dream to swing. A 50 x 30 yard field is scary to look at with that little tiny coil but believe me it will work! You will not be disappointed. Rick
 

ATPRoDon

Full Member
Nov 26, 2007
132
88
Griffin, GA
Detector(s) used
Whites Surf PI, Whites V3i, Minelab Equinox 800
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I don't think you can beat the 6 inch coil in high trash areas with the Equinox and really most metal detectors will operate the same way with a smaller coil. Rule of thumb is the diameter of the coil is the depth you will get out of it.
 

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dirtlooter

dirtlooter

Gold Member
Jun 5, 2014
8,889
13,497
mid western ARK
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
3
Detector(s) used
XP Deus with 9"LF and 9" HF Coils and 600 Equinox with stock and 6" coils
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
guess I am shopping for one now but it appears that they are pretty much the same price everywhere.
 

digger27

Bronze Member
May 18, 2011
1,506
3,225
I live and hunt around Birmingham Alabama.
I have mineralized red dirt clay, mineralized black dirt, natural iron, iron bits nuts, bolts, nails and pieces from knocked down houses and neighborhoods most everywhere plus iron from microscopic to small to large pieces of iron slag left over from the iron and steel industries that built this town and ran for over 100 years.
Here depth is not great but luckily most great targets aren't all that deep...The 5-7" level has all kinds of fantastic targets and old coins, a surprising amount of them as a matter of fact.
The issue here is really masking, not depth, so many so called hunted out spots are not actually hunted out but the targets were so masked and skewed nobody ever went after them.

I have done amazingly well here despite all of that using a couple of Tesoros and a couple of Fishers, specifically the F70.
Using that one I figured out a few things and broke the code, somewhat, and I was able to cull a lot of those better targets out of the ground and some were surprisingly deep.
I did this by learning a new language and behavior which took me many, many hours of experimentation and digging.
Then I got the Nox.

The thing just handles my crazy environment better.
Not perfect, it likes iron but there are "tells" and the more I hunt with it the more behavior I am noticing about many targets including iron and targets masked by massive iron.
I did pretty good with the Nox learning it with the standard coil and it's unmasking abilities shocked me but then last fall I got the 6"...it changed the game considerably for me around here.

Using the 6" coil and some weird settings I found the Zippo lighter in an area in a park I have scoured 100 times.
It was solid, pinpointed perfectly but only in one really tiny spot and I dug it but my Propointer went nuts when I stuck it back in the hole to check after retrieving it.
Underneath this thing was something massive, the pinpointer was hitting on this thing loud for a good square foot around the lighter.
I have no idea how the Nox zeroed in on this thing but it did...I think the sniper coil might have had a lot to do with noticing it.

photostudio_1553875402116.jpg

I know this rig had a lot of hype but I didn't buy one because of hype...I bought one because a buddy got one first and the first time we hunted together I saw what it could do in this dirt and I was shocked.
This is my experience at a certain special site I hunt, it is as close to a scientific laboratory as I can get.

I have a neighbor across the street that gave me the ok to hunt his small lawn and I have been doing that for over two years now.
I mean years, not seasons...we can hunt through the entire winter down here.

My personal space, nobody but me has ever hunted it.
I spent hours at this home on some hunts, sometimes I just hit it a little walking by it on the to a park that is just behind it.
When I say I have scoured this place for close to 100 hours of more I am not exaggerating.
I used a Compadre, a Mojave, a Red Racer with two coils and an F70 with 5 coils plus a Vaq and 3 coils including a concentric sniper.
At first it was easy, I found a walker half on my second target the first time I hunted there with a Mojave and many wheats and clad and other cool tokens and things in the months after but eventually things slowed down.
I started experimenting with the F70 and the others for over a year before I got the Nox.
Every setting I could think of, every strange repeating behavior I tried to notice, every coil and all of it got their turn.
I dug a few more masked coins when it went really dark there but they were few and far between.
I wondered why I never found any more silver there but, whatever.
Over a year ago I started to dig almost everything, the iffy ones might be good targets of good targets might be masked by trash or iron so I proceeded to dig as much as I could stand just to get another shot at something great but for a long time not much popped up.
Then I finally found a war nickel under a bush with the Fisher but no more silver after that.
I hunted this place several times with the Nox and the standard coil at first, again I found a few more coins, some wheats and others and not huge but I consider every target that comes out of here a big victory.
In September something wonderful happened, I was at this house with the Nox and my new small coil and I got a very tight, short high tone but in the middle of a cacophony of other numbers and sounds but I could eventually zero in on that sort of repeating high tone and dug down.
Under a root about 5" deep was not just one high tone target but two...plus the two rusty nails I dug out as I was digging down to them.

photostudio_1553875460276.jpg

I had gotten coils over this exact spot countless times using all kinds of detectors and coils and never had any indication these dimes were down there because I would have gone after them long ago.
The Nox could get a piece of them but I think the small coil did the heavy lifting on this one.

After that I practiced looking for that same behavior everywhere and I started finding targets everywhere.
On a trip back to this lawn after getting pretty decent at this technique and this is what came out of that lawn.
Not all of it in this pic but about 70% of the coins did...The merc definitely surprised me.
This lawn was not so hunted out after all.

photostudio_1553875143453.jpg


A few weeks later I hit this lawn again.
Same deal, Nox, sniper coil, sense at around 20, recovery on 4, iron bias pretty low, 5 tones with a special user program where all the coin number plus nickels all stuck out with loud high tones to notice things better.
Again, going slow and looking for that repeating behavior I got one, opened a hole and only a couple inches down I find this looking back at me.

photostudio_1553875258195.jpg

This site, among others, proves to me how awesome the Nox is in my dirt and how much that sniper coil seems to matter.
I have many hours with the big coil and probably more with the sniper and the sniper hasn't left the bottom of my rod since I got it.
For many reasons and many of them silver.
 

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dirtlooter

dirtlooter

Gold Member
Jun 5, 2014
8,889
13,497
mid western ARK
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
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Detector(s) used
XP Deus with 9"LF and 9" HF Coils and 600 Equinox with stock and 6" coils
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
happy camper! I figured that there were guys like you that really like the 6 inch coil. I do have targets that get pretty deep in many places here but also a lot of spots that three inches down is shale. I have areas that it would be stupid to use the smaller coil, more open and less trashy but there are other areas where it might shine. awesome reply and thanks
 

digger27

Bronze Member
May 18, 2011
1,506
3,225
happy camper! I figured that there were guys like you that really like the 6 inch coil. I do have targets that get pretty deep in many places here but also a lot of spots that three inches down is shale. I have areas that it would be stupid to use the smaller coil, more open and less trashy but there are other areas where it might shine. awesome reply and thanks


I still have the bigger coil, if I was still living and hunting in Kansas and Missouri in that beautiful, black almost perfect soil I would probably would be using that a lot more.
Then again if I still lived out there I probably would never have considered a Nox because all my detectors and coils worked so well there.
I sometimes go outside my regular sites and hunt areas with less iron and trash so it will still be used.
Here, the Nox seems like it just can tune in to very masked targets better, like going from old style rabbit ears tv broadcasts that were all snowey and ghosty to cable....much clearer.
Adding the 6" coil is like going from cable and regular 720 or 1080p to 4k resolution...even sharper and clearer.

That is in my part of the world in the city with all this junk, iron and trash we have to deal with.
We do ok here but we lost big time in the good dirt and conditions lottery, we make do because what else is there?
We got screwed but luckily this tool came along and seems to be working pretty well for me and my three other friends that switched to it and quit using their Whites, Garretts and a few other brands.
The 6" sniper for me is just icing on the cake.

BTW...depth can be pretty awesome using the small coil depending on your dirt, of course.
Even here I have gotten down way past the 5-7" targets I aim for on a few, in great soil I would expect it to be closer to the standard coil's depth than you might think possible.
 

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dirtlooter

dirtlooter

Gold Member
Jun 5, 2014
8,889
13,497
mid western ARK
🏆 Honorable Mentions:
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Detector(s) used
XP Deus with 9"LF and 9" HF Coils and 600 Equinox with stock and 6" coils
Primary Interest:
Relic Hunting
one adapts to conditions one way or another or frustration kicks in. It sounds like you guys have been adjusting pretty well, especially in that dirt. I have some dirt, lots of rock with shale pockets everywhere. The red clay can sometimes be gray in areas but all in all, not to bad compared to the hot ground of other places. sometimes no matter what we try to do with the equipment that we have, it is not adequate for the job or conditions. So we adapt by getting something that does a better job. Detectors have come a long ways
 

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