Larger coils exprience needed. (400i)

[Olegrumpy]

Hi !

Living in Europe, I never was fond of the firts Aces (nor was I of the GTA's) because they simply were not suited to our coin shooting and relic hunting needs.

But when I read the specs of the newest Ace 400i, I suspected the time had come...to buy one. Received a good deal from my dealer here, and started to hunt the dry beaches here the very same afternoon, and the detector immediately put a BIG smile on this Ole face...

Not only does it find coins like there was no tomorrow, but it finds coins that have been for a long while in the sand, and those tourist beaches here are heavily hunted, including by this old beach rot, and with expensive machines too !!! I was impressed, and suppose the newer tweaks by Garret, including the frequency pushed up to 10 Khz are the main reason for that.

And of course, if it finds missed coins in the first 9 to 10 ", it will certainly find even deeper missed coins with a larger coil.

The sands (dry) here are of the low mineralised type, and I would not hesitate to put a larger coil on the unit despite the fixed ground balance.

But I have no experience with aces and larger coils.

My choice (that is the availability here) must be done between the detech 10x14", the SEF 12x15 or the Ultimate 13".

I suppose I could squeeze some inches more out of these coils, but I'm looking for stability too, I do not like chatty detectors.

So, if experienced hunters using one or more of those coils could chime in and share his experience and opinion, It would be greatly appreciated.



Cheers

Grumpy

 

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[John-Edmonton]

I have used the 9" x 12" Garrett concentric coil in my low mineralized soil, and it works well. Covers a lot of area and seems to squeeze a couple more inches then the stock coil.

 

[Olegrumpy]

I have used the 9" x 12" Garrett concentric coil in my low mineralized soil, and it works well. Covers a lot of area and seems to squeeze a couple more inches then the stock coil.

Thanks John. The 9 x 12" concentric is on my want list. I reckon it must be excellent with the new ACE line, and two inches is what I excpect to squeeze out of it

But I would like to experiment a larger DD coil, due to the iron audio capability of the 400i. A friend of mine bought one (Ultimate) for his Tesoro Silver µMAX, and it's quite catastrophic on bottlecaps. (the depth increase on his detector is about 4" on a 2€ coin with that coil)

The Garrett has the same frequency, and should allow bottlecap ID, I just don't know which coil would provide the best depth/weight ratio.

Cheers

Grumpy

 

[TrashureSeeker]

If I were you I'd stick with the smaller coils, in the end they give much crisper results, are lighter, seperate better and you get less double signals. I've done some testing with my brand new NEL Hunter (a bit bigger than the AT Pro stock coil) and haven't been too impressed so far. The depth is great, but pinpointing is super hard to get right and I had double signals all the time. Got my NEL Snake in the mail today that I plan to replace my 5x8 coil with, that one I loved much more than the two bigger ones I now have.

 

[bowwinkles]

The basic design of the 400 (youth) does not fit well with larger coils. The short arm cuff and heavy coils are not a good fit. Very uncomfortable for long hunts. Best stay with the smaller coils on sweet soil.

 

[Olegrumpy]

Sorry guys for the late answer : Holyday time in Italy (without detector !).

I have sees 250's with 15x12 SEF pulling coins out of "hunted out" dry sand beaches, and at impressive depths.

I don't think the 400i is a toy either, the 150 might have been, but they all find treasure. I understand the concern, a sef might be too heavy, but the Ultimate is light (tried one out on my Eurotek).

Anyway, to make mong thoughts short, I ordered the Ultimate. The 9x12 is still on my want list, though, but this one is easily found on the 2nd hand market over here.

Thanks for the inputs !