Lash said:When I was in college we treasured pull-tabs. Had chains of them strung all over the dorm.
Are there certain machines with reputations for good or poor ID accuracy?
I don't know about the x70's prospetinng capabilities but it is an excecllent coin shooter. Just because it has a prospecting mode doesn't mean that coin shooting abilities are reduced.Tom_in_CA said:Lash, you say you'll be hunting @ "Saltwater beaches, old homesites, gold country for nuggets". It's very doubtful you'll find a single good cross-over machine to do all of those tasks. Yes, "cross-over" machines have been made that both can do coin/relics, and then, with the flip of a few switches, can be made to find teensy pinhead sized nuggets. But believe me: they excell in neither arena. The goals of each type of hunting are just too opposed. A coin/relic guy DOESN'T want to find and/or hear every single piece of birdshot, staple, etc... But a nugget guy does. So the electronics to make a machine excell in each task are difficult to morph together. There will be much better coin/relic machines, and there will be much better nugget machines, than trying to have a machine capable of both. The few that can do both certainly will not have a good target ID (at least when compared with dedicated coin/relic machines).
You may want to explore getting more than 1 machine. As for the most accurate target ID, when it comes to coins, the Explorer has a good reputation of retaining good IDs at depth, good iron disc, etc.... But no, it will not find teensy nuggets, since that's not what it was designed for.
I hear ya Tom. I guess I took your post as saying that combo machines are compromised coin/relic hunters. I looked at the original post as he would be hunting beaches, homesteads and nuggets. Two of which are coin/relic territory. I think if you are occasionally nugget hunting, a combo might do you fine. Seems that the dedicated gold machines are big bucks and not to very useful at two of the three places lash mentioned.Tom_in_CA said:vondrewvious, yes: various coin/relic machines have a "prospecting mode", and no, that doesn't reduce their coin/relic ability. The XLT and Spectrum would be an example of this. They too have an ability for persons to "swap over to nugget mode". But believe me, they'd have no comparison in ability to dedicated nugget machines, made only for finding nuggets. No serious full-time nugget hunter would be out there with an XLT, while his buddies are out there with dedicated nugget machines. By the end of the day, he'd be out-done by the others. Is that to say that he (with his XLT) can't find nuggets? no. But which is the better machine for the task?