Tejon VS Vaquero

birdman

birdman

Gold Member
Jan 28, 2005
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Choctaw Beach Florida
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Equinox 800 and ORX, tesoro Cibola with garret,whites and minelab pinpointers
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birdman said:
I am sure this question has been asked before but just wondering if it is worth getting a Tejon since I already have a Vaquero. I have been told the T is just a little bit deeper but the V is more stable. Any buddy have both? Pros / Cons that type of thing.Thanks in advance. :)
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Birdman I've never owned the Vaquero but as you know I spent a lot of time with the Tejon.

Like I wrote in my review at metaldetectorreview.net of the Tejon, it's a near perfect coin/ring detector.

I asked the man himself (James Gifford) if the Tejon is deeper and he said yes. You can check that out by emailing him or posting to his website.

We hear a lot about the V being deeper on coins but it isn't.

However, the guys tell me (not James) the depth difference isn't all that great, maybe an inch or so with stock coils. James won't really say exactly how much deeper the Tejon is over the Vaquero.

So, depth isn't really the issue here. It's the added features you get with the Tejon that make it the choice as far as I'm concerned. That trigger for two discrimninational modes is sweet. It works kind of like a tight notch. You can really single out targets with it.

If I had no Tesoro and wanted one of their models it would be the Tejon. It is by far their best machine. If I already owned the Vaquero and money was an issue, I wouldn't bother moving to the Tejon unless I got a fat price for the V.

Lets put it this way, probably everything the Tejon will find the Vaquero would also find. We're talking mostly added features here.

Oh, and one more thing, don't believe those negative writeups about the Tejon not being deep--not being good on gold--or it chatters a lot. These people who post these things don't understand the machine. This is true of most extremely negative reviews these days for any good brand detector.

Badger
 

Good stuff Badger. That was my concern ,spending the money and not getting any more depth. I sold my last two closet queen detectors a few months ago and now I wish I had them for trading on a Tejon. Money is great but when it goes into the house hold kitty you don't see it.LOL I have heard the Tejon is terrible in bad ground but I have never run into much bad ground any where I have hunted so that would not deter me to much. I have been surprised how deep the Vaquero has pulled stuff out of the ground but I also know there is always targetsthat your machine might have missed .
 

I've heard that about the Tejon getting bad depth in bad soil. My guess is all VLF machines get bad depth in bad soil.

I hunted old village trash dumps filled with rust and never had a bit of trouble with my Tejon.

I tend to think the only way to do significantly better in bad soil is to use a PI machine. That's why I ordered a new Infinium.

Right now I have a Tesoro Bandido 2 uMax with 12x10 concentric coil for general hunting and the PI will be used to recheck the hot spots.

Badger
 

There are a lot of machines that outperform the Tejon in bad ground. It's depth is reduced significantly in highly mineralized ground, much more so than the Vaquero. I've hunted places in Virginia where the Tejon wouldn't find a bullet at 3 inches, but the Vaquero beeped loud and clear. And while you can hunt easily with the Vaquero in all metal with a threshold, it's impossible to do with the Tejon. Anyone who says they can get a smooth threshold with the Tejon while hunting is pulling your leg. It's fine as a pinpointer, but no way as a means to hunt, even at reduced sensitivity. The dual discriminator is top notch though. And in good ground it may be a bit deeper than the Vaquero, but to me that's also questionable. If I had to rate my top 4 Tesoros for relic hunting, they would be Vaquero, Cibola, Tejon, and Silver, with the Silver very close to the Tejon. My son has used a Silver for years, and most hunters using any machine he eats for lunch. Just part of knowing your machine, and he wouldn't trade his Silver for any machine of any brand.
 

It's not quite that simple;

The Tejon is not well-designed for bad soil. It never was. Neither is the Cortez. The frequency is higher on the Tejon too. It was designed more for market of much of the deep S for relic hunting and for Europe for relic hunting and it does this very well too. The Fisher 1270 has the same problem because the Tejon is a close clone of the 1270. Both suck in highly mineralized soil.

Most of the deep S and Europe have really fair soil, not too much mineralization. The Tejon has a very high gain and higher frequency built into it in order to punch deep into more gentle soil, and it does this very, very well too. In fact, FABULOUSLY! It has an extremely deep air test (up to 17 inches on some coins) and the 1270 goes even deeper in air (up to 20 inches on some coins) , because it has more voltage to it's coil than even the Tejon.. If anybody doubts that a 1270 will get 20 inches on some coins, then go sue KellyCo, they even advertize this depth right in their ads.. If anybody doubts that a Tejon will get up to 17" in an air test, then you don't own one like I do or you need to send it back to Tesoro to be repaired..

In the case of the Vaquero, it has a MUCH faster all-metal mode (SAT) and a (seemingly) a faster discriminate (SAT) mode built into it too. It punches a little bit deeper in real bad soil than the Tejon does. It is inherent in it's design, not incidental. A brand new Tejon cannot completely ground balance in highly mineralized soil without sending it and a sample of the bad soil being sent back to Tesoro to readjust the ground balance circuitry and reducing the gain, and trying it again. I have written scrolls about this and I really wish that some one would post it somewhere permanently. This is not an opinion or rhetoric that I read from some other post or someone else's philosophy, it is an electronics fact, and if people don't know it now they can always find out about it the hard way I suppose, but now they don't have to.

Because the Tejon does not GB well in bad soil as well as the Vaquero with it's super-fast retune, it becomes inherently weak in it's depth abilty in the bad stuff too. That's why the Vaquero sometimes (but not always) finds things deeper than the Tejon, because they are not the same, they are inherently two different types of detectors designed for different reasons and running on different frequencies. The Tejon is primarily a relic hunter, and the Vaqueor is primarily a coin hunter. Anybody who has used detectors very long already knows this too, so let's educate the greenies so they too can know..

HH and watch out for the guy watching you over in the corner of the park.
 

Yep I totally agree with everything you're saying. But unfortunately in Tesoro's ad for the Tejon, they state, "The Tejon meets and defeats all soil conditions." As you stated, that's not true, and has had many folks buy the Tejon when it wouldn't work in their soil conditions. "The Tejon is a super deep detector in mild soil" would be more appropriate, and of course, true.
 

Hey Easy, I'm located in North Alabama and was just wondering what you recommend for our region of the state, as you maybe know Alabama is considered by many to be the "Heart of Dixie" in the deep south and with our infestation of iron and red clay soils which machine would you use here? I have had just as good of luck with my Teosro's as I have had with my Minelabs, Whites, Garrett, and the Compass. Is there a specific one out there in metal detector land that I should try? As you can see I collect detectors also.
Thanks!
Tim

By the way where do you live and what is you favorite detector?
 

Over in the UK and Europe the LOBO has a great following, along with the Vaquero. From what I´ve heard the TEJON eats batteries, and performance falls off sharply if you use them too long. Some mates with them change their batteries every day, and say you should only use top quality batteries such as DURACELL, as as soon as the voltage drops, so does the performance, but much more than the relevant voltage drop. Having said that, they all agree it´s a fantastic machine, they just wish it wasn´t so expensive to run when maintaining optimum performance.
HH Ray
 

Easymoney,

"I have written scrolls about this and I really wish that some one would post it somewhere permanently. This is not an opinion or rhetoric that I read from some other post or someone else's philosophy, it is an electronics fact, and if people don't know it now they can always find out about it the hard way I suppose, but now they don't have to."

I do save some of your words on detector theory because you are always right on target. The normal detectorist out there always thinks that his or her detector is the best, that's human nature. The other obsession is with depth, the real pros know that there is a whole lot more to a detector than how deep it will go. Unless you get back to me and say no, I'm going to quote you in the future when someone raises a question about a topic you have already commented on. Joe
 

Joe, thanks for the kind words, and I picked up the Wal-Mart MO and will be sending it tomorrow.

And as for me, I'd rather spend 20 minutes with a fast, damn good discriminator to find 4 times what a so-called powerhouse, depth-demon $3500 machine that makes me dig down 10" in hard clay soil to find a rusted zinc penny in four hours of fiddling with a lot of controls and settings. I think you get my drift..

Go ahead and quote me, I'm not ashamed and I don't try to BS people with any opinions either. Seems that you and I are reading off the same sheet of music. That's good.

Now, using a plastic or clay pot or a "test garden" is NOT a fair way to test a detector for depth or discrimination capabilities OR smooth operation. There are so many variables that disallow this that it's just about ludicrous to even think that it's fair.

Some people don't quite understand this, so I'll give a short narrative.

Each and every coil radiates a different width signal, a different pattern, and a different depth. There are no two coils that operate exactly the same as another, regardless of what a detector company says about them. They are all a tiny bit different than their clone. . the pattern of the radiation makes the different detectors all read differently than in real life, and this includes tests in a "test garden" too. Don't EVER rely on those practices and don't ever tell someone else that they are reliable either, because they are not. And we haven't even considered the rate of retune (SAT), level of +/- voltage to the receiving coil, speed of and height and lows of the RMS signal, etc., and how all these facets all interact with each other in all different situations compounded by whatever matrix we are trying to cancel (ground balance). In fact, there are actually hundreds of determinants including impedence, resistence differences, the properties of resistors, capacitors, thyristors, transformers, shunts, pots, trimmers, etc. to consider and compute changing values for before making any dependable decisions as to how well a detector will work "outside the box".

Some coils can get real close to big pieces of metal and still find a coin within 2 or 3 inches of it. When you use a dirt or clay pot (same thing), or a plastic one, or a test garden,, there is no strata (the polarity) of the molecules present as there is in normal, slowly evolving alignment of molecules, all having their positive ends all facing the same direction, all headed out like a bunch of sardines in can, all facing the same direction. You see, after awhile, EVERYTHING obtains a magnetic alignment, including water, air, dirt, plastic, metal, chicken soup, etc. All it takes is time, and the longer of time it has, the better the molecules align. It works almost the same in electrical wiring, but when the electrical circuit is completed it speeds the alignment up to the nth degree.

Soil is like everything else. It has all it's strata (different layers of different minerals, in different chemical combinations or singularily, all having the same substance) alligned magnetically, or quantumly or electrically. In fact, it is ALL just pure energy, ALL of it, and it's all ELECTRICAL (AKA magnetic) energy too. It always comes down to it's magnetic properties and magnetism is quite simply - electricity. They are the same.

Everything is the same, be it electricity, or chemical, it is all only energy, and nothing else. There is no such thing as real solid either. Now let's talk about the soil some more. I get dozens of questions about ground balance, so here is a short thing or two about that too.

Your ground balances are simply nothing more than a knob or circuit or switch that controls the voltage changes in response to the substance that the signal encounters, be it ground, water, metals, etc, it makes no difference. . The ground balance operates differently on some coils and some detectors and soils than on others. There is no way to predict or predetermine by testing how well it will work by using a test garden or a clay pot, or a plastic jug full of sand from the beach. To try to do so is basically foolery or even as bad as being perhaps not very knowledgeable as to how ground balance even works?

Here is an example: If I went to the Oregon coast my Fisher cz-70 would find a nickel in the black sand about 7 inches. It would be the deepest of all detectors in most cases with sometimes the Compass going a bit deeper in different sand there.. My Sovereign would find it at 6" and the Sov goes a little bit deeper than any Minelab Explorer and the same as a Sov GT.

But when I take a pailful of the sand back to test at home or up on the beach there up off the ground completely, all the detectors act completely different than they did at the oceanside, even the Sov to some degree. They all switch places in depth, ALL of them. No matter what I do, the whole thing becomes chaotic and wierd. The Fisher no longer is the King of depth in that situation, but the Compass is, and so is the Tejon. On the beach the Tejon might as well be used as a boat anchor though, it HATES high black sand, and to the M-A-X! But in a plastic pail full of the same sand that I dug out of the exact same test area on the beach the Tejon beats just about everything, except for the Compass. Even a cheap White's Classic 3 beats the Fisher cz, you know, the one I said that got the best depth with on the actual beach..?

Conclusion; don't EVER rely on a test garden, a test pot, or an air test to decide whether a detector is a good one or not. Rely on whether the detector actually works where you need to use it, and not in a barrel somewhere, or a pot or test garden either. Air test may be the best indicator of a detector's depth potential but there is a lot more to it than that.

Ok, so what, so I know a few things that seem a bit odd, but I AM odd, it's my mission in life to think outside the box. Some people know some things, and some people know others. My main purpose here is to inform or be informed. If I can't inform, I'll be more than glad to BE informed, and at times I am too, and hopefully by someone who will take the time to explain something to me.

Tim, I would go with the detector that has the very best range of iron discrimination that you can find. The one with a real wide iron rejection band to adjust, because it will better help you to decide whether the relic you find is good, or bad. Find someone with a 1270 and try it out, otherwise you may already have the best you can own, unless you could find a Baron MIllinium somewhere cheap with the proper combination setup of module plus coil. A Garrett 2000 (not a 2500) has extreme depth in light to medium soil, but it too sucks in high iron soil, just as does the Ace 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500 1250, 1350, 2000,and 2500's. None of the Aces or the aforementioned are schematically well-designed for black sand or salt beach hunting, and it even says right there in Charlie Garretts own charts that they aren't either.. I'm not ready to call Charlie a liar. He knows his own machines. He makes other detectors better designed for the bad soil. The Garrett Infinium would be my #1 choice for beach hunting, anywhere.

Ray, I'm having a bit of trouble understanding why a Tejon would "eat batteries", because mine won't. Does it seem to have plenty of power? If not, then there certainly is a problem with too high of resistence somewhere near the first transformer somewhere and that would put a big drain on the batteries.. Tesoro will probably fix that problem for free, but maybe won't pay your postage. The Tejon was DESIGNED for your world..

Here is a site that should be visited by all, just in case you want to know the why's and hows of metal detecting. And I'll toss in a much more complicated version (George's) for those who are considerably more technically inclined.

Keith Wills:

http://www.brokendetector.com/ground-balance.htm

George Payne:

http://jb-ms.com/Baron/gb.htm

These two guys are the best of the best, and absolutely indisputable in their knowledge of metal detectors. Without George Payne you would not be using the very detector you are using today, and without Keith Wills you may not be using the modified or previously repaired one you now use.
 

It´s not my detector, but several of my mates have them and comment on this. They say it still works well if you leave the batteries in longer, but depth after a full day´s use is reduced the next day by upto 20% or even 25%. It´s still deep, but you notice the difference from using fresh batteries to those of even a day old. Maybe the new batteries (In this case they mostly use DURACELLS), over power the machine, making it deeper, and then it settles. I don´t know, as I don´t use one, I use a French machine, which has the same phenonomen, but instead of depth, it´s the sound that isn´t as crisp on mine.
HH Ray
 

I have had great battery life with my Tejon.

Dan
 

As always ,a lot of great information on this site. Looks like I am going to miss (being deployed this mid summer) a good part of the prime hunting season here so buying another machine is going to be put on hold for a while. Still allways looking for the deals though.The Tejon looks like it is a winner for sure in the right soil.
 

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