Different size coils? Help

[Jovan421]

Hello fellow hunters just had a question about different size coils for metal detecting. I use the bounty hunter tracker IV with the basic stock 8" coil. I noticed that they also make a 4" and 10" coil. Wanted to know some pros and cons about these. The the 4" golder digger one looks interesting but not sure how it will benifit. I current hunt in wood areas but will be going to the beaches also. Any info would help. Thanks

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

answer

The rule of thumb on coil-sizes, is this: Smaller coils allow you to see in and around targets better (for junky sites, targets co-located, etc....). They also pinpoint better, see less minerals (so you can up your sens. a bit more), etc....

But larger coils, on the other hand, go deeper. But there is a "point of diminishing returns" on just how big you can go in the coil size, before you no longer see individual coins any deeper. At a certain point in increasingly larger coil sizes, you only see BIG targets deeper, not coin-sized targets. The "point" is usually at around 9 to 11" (Thus the reason the stock coils are usually in this size range). There are some exceptions, with certain machine/coil combo's, where you can indeed go up to very large coils, and continue to get more depth on coin-sized targets. An example of this is the Sov/Wot combo (15" coil). But for most/many others, going to a 15" coil won't get you any more depth on a dime or penny, than the 10" coil will. All you would do is simply get more ground coverage (at the inherent drawbacks of needing to lower the sens. perhaps, poor pinpointing, masking, etc....).

So it all just depends on the type sites you intend to hunt, the type targets you are looking for, the particular machine and coil combo's you have in mind, etc....

Hello fellow hunters just had a question about different size coils for metal detecting. I use the bounty hunter tracker IV with the basic stock 8" coil. I noticed that they also make a 4" and 10" coil. Wanted to know some pros and cons about these. The the 4" golder digger one looks interesting but not sure how it will benifit. I current hunt in wood areas but will be going to the beaches also. Any info would help. Thanks

 

[woof!]

4 inch concentric searchcoil: a killer in trashy spots where a larger coil is likely to have both good stuff and bad stuff at the same time underneath it, impairing the ability to discriminate in the good stuff and discriminate out the bad stuff. The 4 incher will also be hotter on tiny stuff like earrings. And the BH 4 inch searchcoil doesn't even cost very much, as accessory searchcoils go.

10 inch concentric: searchcoil: slightly broader coverage, but very little if any increase in depth when installed on a TK4 because it's a mismatch to the TK4's quick response. I couldn't really recommend it for a TK4.

11 inch elliptical DD (which you didn't mention): broader sweep and a little more depth, target separation slightly better than the standard 8 inch concentric because of the elliptical DD design. Nice searchcoil, but not cheap. Hard to justify spending that much money on an accessory for a TK4: probably make more sense to save up for a more expensive metal detector, say in the $300 range or higher. The BH - Teknetics -Fisher product lines include machines all the way from about $60 to well over a thousand bucks.

There's a BH forum here on the TNet website, better place to be posting about TK4's and other BH products.

--Dave J.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I use 15 to 18" coils on my excals and sov gt, i recover good targets in 14-18" depth with mine. I am amazed many times of the depth and i have no problem pinpointing..

 

[dustytrails123]

I use 15 to 18" coils on my excals and sov gt, i recover good targets in 14-18" depth with mine. I am amazed many times of the depth and i have no problem pinpointing..

My arm gets tired just thinking about using an 18 incher mines 15x17 and its like brand new yet only seen 3 hours use ....ohhh so heavy

 

[sonofadigger]

holy crap that is a huge coil are we compesating for something ha ha kust kidding

 

[Jovan421]

that thing whould detect over my front yard in 3 swipes lol Yea that would get heavy after sweeping hundreds of times

 

[Frankn]

Here's the reality. There is little loss in dept on smaller coils since they are running the same power output. You can pinpoint just as well with an 8" coil as with a 4" coil, if you know your coil and know what you are doing. You really only need one coil, but you really have to learn what it is telling you. I use a whites XLT with the stock 9.5 coil I have found everything from a #6 shot at about 3" to a license plate at at just shy of 2'. Oh, yes, I have also found the good stuff like silver dollars, gold coins, diamond rings, ruby rings, gold chains, relics, etc. Frank

 

[U.K. Brian]

People tend to go large these days when they are often better dropping down a size or two. If there's an elliptical coil for a detector then you can have the advantage of the extra ground coverage without to much extra ground mineralisation being picked up.

I doubt if there's much or any performance gain with the Bounty Hunter by going that little bit bigger unless the ground is fairly neutral and has few targets both good and bad. With my XLT or any Spectrum the major drawback is that the stock coil does target mask from surrounding metal so much. Dropping to the eight inch on my ground loses little or no depth but helps with masking. The six inch is even better but here you really start to notice the loss of ground coverage.
Frankn is happy with the 9.5" and that may well be best for his area. My fields have three thousand years of worked metal in them, most scrap iron and you need to get inbetween if your not going to dig everything.

 

[MickeyMaguire]

I had a four-inch coil from Bounty Hunter when I was writing reviews for Mickey Cochran. Mickey gave that to me along with the headphones. The four-inch coil did work well for junk-filled areas, but there was not as much depth as the standard eight-inch coil (no surprise there). It was good for finding gold. I tried it on the Tracker IV, Land Star, and Time Ranger. It worked well on all three machines. I tried it on the Discovery 1000 (which comes wiith a seven-inch coil). It worked "okay", but not as well as the Tracker IV, and that I chalked up to "standard deviation" because the machine is a Tracker IV under the hood.

 

[Frankn]

The XLT has such a good pinpointing setup using the dept reading that I would venture a guess that most users rely on it heavily, but I have found that if you hit an "ify" target it is better to use the edge of the coil to locate it. This is done by comming in from all four sides, one at a time and noteing where the signal JUST STARTS. This will outline the target and give you a good idea of what it is. It will also give you an idea of if it is really more than one target.