Best all-a-round Detector

[AuExplorer]

I have a question. I love my v/sat, I like the ability of the v/sat to pick up all kinds of things.(small flakes/nuggets , lead shot , coins and all kinds of trashy stuff)

I am looking to modernize my detecting. What would be the modern digitized equiv to my v/sat.
I am looking for an all around machine that will not slow my nugget hunting even on the saltflats and still not miss a coin or other historical artifact even if it may be iron. It also must be able to walk up the middle of a creek as well..... 8)

Any input or suggestions are welcome.

 

[EDDE]

no VDI but a goody 8)
http://www.troycustomdetectors.com/cgi-bin/webbbs_config.pl/#85293

 

[AuExplorer]

Not bad reviews, thankyou... I would have never guessed Troy put out this unit, Are there any others that are up this alley and in your opion, how would it compare to an explorer...

 

[EDDE]

only detector ive ever owned
cant compare it to a EX 2/SE never owned or used one sorry
maybe a sovereign also would work also
dont corn hole yourself into a whites or garret etc
shop around ask the questions you think they can answer

 

[AuExplorer]

I will give my local troy distributor a call tomorrow and check it out in a demo, Thanks

 

[EDDE]

side note
it will find black sand/s (which can/can not carry gold flakes)

 

[AuExplorer]

Yes it can.

I prefer the Limonite deposits myself. These are extremely oxidized at the surface and have a very high iron and ppm/micron noble metal content,hence the vsat and Falcon probe. The Troy does look promising for my application. An example of what I hunt would be a Rio Tinto equivalent geology. Here in Utah, I have come to find that the Spanish could not leave a decent Limonite deposit alone. Being alot of creek and river placers are closed to RD&S activities. I found it can be more fruitful to hunt the open BLM for Limonite bearing disseminated free mill gold.I appreciate the help....

 

[Michigan Badger]

The best all-a-round detector?

After 40+ years of detecting (as of today at 3:55 P.M.) I'd say the Sovereign GT.

The Tesoro Silver is also great but the ocean guys tell me the Minelab product is the only thing for salt sands.

If you're not doing the salt thing, then I'd say the best "bang for the buck" is definitely the Silver uMax with 12x10 inch concentric coil.

I bought my uMax used (mint) for $150 postpaid. I bought the 12x10 coil used (mint) for $80 postpaid. In depth it's very close to the GT. The thing about the GT is its AUTO ground balance/sensitivity and multi-tones that gives it that extra edge (in my opinion).

But the Tesoro is at least 3 times faster than the GT. If I were going to hunt a new site and only had an hour I'd take the Tesoro Silver any day over the GT. If I had a few hours to do a more careful search the GT would be my choice.

For me the perfect combo for land hunting would be the GT and Silver uMax.

For water hunting I'd probably go with the Minelab Excalibur.

Maybe we could say no one machine really does it all.

Badger

 

[EasyMoney]

The White's MXT does it all;

Nugget hunting,

Relics,

Coins,

Heavy black sand,

Caches,

Salt beaches, etc

It is very lightweight and has the best balance of any other detecor I've ever used, except for other White's. White's are EASY to swing for 6-8 hours at a time.

It has decent depth and lots of toys. When I first tried one I didn't know how to stop it's problems with hot rocks, but learning the machine and ordering a different coil than the 9.5 would have fixed that problem very well and very quickly because I learned this from watching a well-experienced user of one..

I don't think there is a better all-around detector made anywhere. It is not as good as the old Compass detectors for as wide a range of use, but it's the best on the current new market today.

I have a cz-70, often touted as the best all-around machine, but the MXT has more functions and finds BB size nuggets deeper than the cz-70. The cz-70 is very good on our horrible beaches here, almost as good as my Compass R&C, and that is amazing. But in really high mineralization the cz-70 will sometimes not read a nickel.

The MXT works VERY WELL here in Oregon on the beaches, and we have some of the nastiest high salt/high black sand beaches in the world. Minelabs work like new Cadillacs here for smoothness of operation but if swung too fast they lose good targets. I know this because I've gone in behind others using them and found out. When I tried it myself the Minelabs (Expls and Sovs) the same thing sometimes happens, so there is obviously a problem there, and it's not the operators fault, unless moving at 5+ feet per sec is an operator's fault..

Note: A Compass au52 on record found (in Nevada) the very smallest nugget ever documented and displayed publically. It was found in a 4" chunk of quartz and the nugget was about the size of a dot on an i. It's now displayed in Nevada somewhere in a casino.

PS: Keith Wills has one a Compass au2000 for sale and it has two frequencies for hunting nuggets, a 52 Khz for fine gold and a 13.77 Khz for deeper, larger nuggets. I think he wants $350 for it. It's an excellent relic hunter too, besides one of the best nugget hunters ever made.