Patriot=Awesome

[Tjack]

I have around 80-100 Hrs. on this unit and it has been a real joy to use. I thought I would give a short review. With a lot of reading and watching videos ( Shout out and thanks to Digger27 and HunterGT ) I have used many different settings with the Patriot. This is a very fun machine to use.

I have hunted old farmsteads and in the park and am very pleased with the performance. I have a few silvers, relics, and clad so far. I believe it to be deep but haven't proved it with anything I have found yet. Deepest was a wheat penny at 8 inches and a Merc. at 7 inches. That's not bad depth but I feel like it will go deeper yet.

I have not dug much good stuff that was bouncing the VDI. Most of the good finds have came with the VDI #'s stable with only a 1-2 # bounce. Most all bouncy signals have been trash. I have found that the sounds are pleasant to listen to. I bought this unit to back up my AT Pro and Vaquero but have found myself grabbing it most of the time. Very easy to swing for long periods of time.

Wish that it had manual ground balance but that has not been an issue. Endless ways to set up the machine is a real asset. Can really fine tune to each hunt. I really want to try a smaller coil but haven't purchased one yet. I am using it with a pair of Killer B Wasp's and am really enjoying this combo.

No complaints at all and am very happy with Patriot!!!!!!!

 

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[digger27]

Sucker!
You actually believed everything we said!

Seriously, even at 100 hours I think I was barely scratching the surface of what it can do and the settings possibilities.
3.5 years in I feel I am still about at that level even with all I have seen and learned.

In my soil I get some insane bouncing but I have learned to read through it, for you to get only a 1-2 number bounce you must have some great soil.
Even when I hunted in almost perfect soil in Kansas I gave up my 1-3 number bounce rule I had using my F2 and opened it up a little more to about 4-5 using the F70...especially on the deeper ones.
Just way more power to tame I figured and I really didn't dig all that much more trash, actual trash usually bounced more than that range.....but I did find much more treasure so consider that from time to time.

The F in Fisher stands for Fun and Fantastic Finds...as you are finding out.

 

[Tjack]

We do have really good soil here. I will keep in check the VDI but so far the small bounce has rang true. I do dig quite a bit of "off" signals and so far dimes are at 73-74, nickels at 31-32, quarters at 84-85, and pennies at 58-59 and 63-64. This has rang true except a copper penny comes in at the 73-74 too. It so far has reminded me of the AT Pro in the stabilized VDI #'s on good signals. Shocked me with this much power and depth but so far the bounce has been minimal on "good" targets...

By the way I don't "believe" everything...

 

[digger27]

In great soil I have no doubt those numbers are in stone with very little bounce.
Appreciate what you are hunting in, I went from hell to heaven for three years and then moved back to hell again.
Man what I would give to hunt in just semi decent dirt again let alone the really good stuff.

On the bouncier stuff it is not so much about those nice single out in the open signals that you get but more about the possibly masked ones with trash in the vicinity that could be shallow or deep or even changed by multiple targets in the same hole.
Case in point, a report from another forum but I will just paste it here...

Maybe about 1.5 months after I started hunting with this thing...just an F70 noob.
This site had massive amounts of EMI, a constant pulsing jumping mess that was always present in this particular area every time I visited this park....the worst EMI plagued site I have ever hunted.
I used a few different combinations of settings to combat this for several months after this one and they all worked.
On other hunts I found much more in this area including silver coins and a gold ring.
On this hunt sense was at 80, thresh at -1, DE speed, 4H tones, disc was probably in the low 20's
A jumpy signal from 50's to flashes of near 80...but besides that EMI there was another reason for that jumping...

___________________________________


Braved the cold and the winds today because I just had the need to dig in the dirt.
Rolling along at a large older park, I was heading toward an area that might have some jewelry.
On the way there I decided to head around the outside and do a little searching in a decent size grass area from the street to a sidewalk, a part I never hunted in the past.
Picked up some clad, some garbage, and then I hit this bouncy signal that went from the 50's to flashes of some 80 numbers on the F70.
Not solid at all really, but I did hear a good tone here and there and the depth reading was right at about 7-8"...9" popped up a couple of times so what the heck, lets dig it.
I open a hole and right in the middle a pretty large root is running through the middle.
I dug down on the right side and kept getting a little deeper till I finally get down to the 7-8" area and then I break up the dirt down there with my Lesche, stick my hand in and grab the dirt and pull it out and throw it on top or the rest of the dirt I dug.
I look and see a dirty coin the size of a cent so I figure wheatie.
I pick it up and look closer after a tiny bit of rubbing and I see...feathers!
An Indian head, alright!
One of my goals this year is to dig more older coins so cool, and I see a date and it is 1901.
Didn't get into the 1800's this year yet, but I have plenty of time and this was darn close.
I stick my Propointer back in and I get another signal so I do a bit more digging and then pull out a pretty wrecked 1915 wheat.
Ok, that is why I got the bounce up to the higher numbers so that is cool.
I stick the PP back in and no other signal so I throw the dirt back in and cover up the hole.


Now at this point I must say to all the newbies why you read time and time again from the people around here to always recheck your hole.
I actually did before I threw the dirt in and got nothing, the PP told me nothing left but these 2 coins were about 2" to the right of that big root.
When I threw the dirt back in I scanned the area once more and this time went a little further to the left of that hole and got another signal.
Also a little jumpy but hey, ya gotta dig it and see what is going on.
I was hoping there was a silver coin down there somewhere because I saw a few lower 70 numbers so I opened another small hole about 3" on the other side of that big root.
I dug down and again found a coin, another dirty cent and looked and wow, another Indian!
This was a 1902, and since I have only found 2 other coins like this in my life, one at a time, I just doubled that number and then beat it on one hunt.
I stick the PP back in the hole and got another signal.
I dig a bit more, pull more dirt out of the hole and found the last one which was actually the least crusty one out of all of these coins and checked out the date on this faded coin.
1887, alright...made it into the 1800's early this year!


The rest of the hunt was uneventful, found some clad but no hoped for jewelry and I did not stay in the area where I found those Indians very long because it was in the open and the wind was a killer today but I sure know the exact area I am heading to next time I hit this park,


I love digging pocket spills but I never had one like this before.
Here is hoping there are more of these in my future.

 

[Phantasman]

I have found this method to clean up coins nicely:



You can work silver to come back to nice and shiny condition.