Question about Tesoro detectors in East Tennessee

[DirtfisherGabe]

I was wondering about whether or not the extra money needs to be spent on a Vaquero, rather than just buying a cibola. From what I understand, a Vaquero is a Cibola with the GB feature. Correct/Incorrect? I mainly coin hunt, but would also like to have the ability to dig some relics. Not 2 feet deep relics...just decent depth as in 7-8 inches roughly. With all that said, has anyone used either one in moderate to highly mineralized ground. Such as East Tn. soil. I would love to get feedback for both detectors, goods and bads. Feel free to share your honest opinion.

If neither of these are suitable for my kind of soil, which Tesoro would be? I don't have my heart set on either of the 2 mentioned above, I have just heard good stuff about both. What about the Golden series? Silver? Older detectors?

I am selling my Whites XLT to fund this, as I feel my XLT just isn't for me....so I will be left with an ACE 250 and whatever other machine I choose to buy with the XLT funds.

Thanks for all the input and help.

Gabe

 

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[Sky Pilot]

Hi Gabe, SkyPilot here.

I live just below you in Tellico Plains and I own at present a Silver Saber MM, (2) Bandido II MM, Golden Saber MM, Cortes, and Vaquero.

I owned the Te'jon till a friend of mine wanted one, and I've owned a lot of the older ones, so I suppose I could offer an opinion.

All the Tesoro models work great for me, but I gotta say that the Silver, Golden and the Vaquero would be my favorites, for several reasons.

First, they stopped making the Bandido, it is great! The Silver kicks butt in trash and goes fairly deep too, the Golden is very similar but has the multi tone ID that works super in our ground, and the Vaquero goes really deep here and has great target separation also.

The Te'jon is a great detector also, and it is like a Fisher 1266X in that it has a dual discriminator system so it is really easy to check a target however
it takes eight double "a" batteries and is quite a bit heavier and if you use it you'll need a shovel or a backhoe! LOL!!
Seriously it will dig you to death picking up birdshot if you leave the discriminator low enough. I'd recommend one of the others if you intend to be in lots of trash.

Just my opinion though.

In five minutes there will probably be a dozen posts telling you different notions, but if I can help, PM me, and I'll be glad to do what I can!

Regards
SkyPilot

 

[Sandman]

Both the Cibola and Vaquero are excellent detectors, but the V is a might better because of the ground balance as not all ground is the same and this will give you the confidence that your detector is qualified for the area. Personally I like the Tejon, but that is because I like the two ranges of disc for checking a target. For example I can set the lower one on the Tejon for just rejecting iron and set the top one for rejecting pulltabs. This way I can check a target and have an idea if it is just a round pulltab or coin. If I am in sand like at a lake were more rings are lost I will check a target with the second disc and if it nulls it is either a pull tab or a gold ring and I can decide if I wanna bend down again to dig it. But you would be extremely happy with the Vaquero!

http://www.losttreasure.com/content/archives/tesoro-electronics-vaquero

Good Luck,
Sandman

 

[Sky Pilot]

The only reason I mentioned the others is because he asked about them, SandMan.

 

[Sandman]

That's OK Sky Pilot, I hoped we helped him choose. Either way which ever one he gets he is going to like it.

 

[DirtfisherGabe]

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. I am now kind of leaning towards the golden.... anymore opinions?

 

[Sky Pilot]

That's OK Sky Pilot, I hoped we helped him choose. Either way which ever one he gets he is going to like it.

Agreed, SandMan!

He really is in a win/win situation!

Regards
SkyPilot

 

[Fortune Finder 73]

Hey Gabe... I live in Maryville and have the cibola and the silver u max, I hunt basically for everything coins, jewelry, relics, etc... I normally hunt with the cibola super tuned and it gets some serious depth, I have dug as deep as 12-15 inches in this hard east Tn clay, which gets pretty tiring with a trowel when you have 3 or 4 finds in a row at that depth...lol. I am in the process of getting a lesche shovel, but anyways I think you would love the cibola for what your needing it for and my opinion on the silver is its a great machine but not as good as the cibola, I have heard if you get the 12x10 coil and put the sensitivity on 9 1/2 to 10 its awesome, but thats just what I have heard...havent tried it yet. for the cibola

 

[bigtim1973]

I live in Mid Tn and am a big fan of tesoros also!!!!! I would not hesitate on the cibola but I will say this, Ground balancing the Vaquero is a little bit more than what your used to with the XLT but once you have mastered it, it will not be any problem. Any machine from tesoro does real good here in TN because the soil is really pretty mild from what I have experienced so far...Either way you should be pretty happy but you must not turn your discriminator up too far because it will omit certain coins such as indian head pennies and the conquistador I had would cancel out silver dimes too so make sure you keep the disc turned down somewhat while coinshooting, Tim

 

[DirtfisherGabe]

Ok, so I think I made a good choice...What do you guys think?

I traded with Max (saltwater_max). He is a dealer on here. Anyways, he had this Tejon listed at a great price. So I called him up. He was very very nice, easy to deal with, and real...as in, he didn't give you a bunch of bull about this and that.

So in the end, I ended up with the tejon w/ stock coil, 5.75 concentric, 5.75 widescan, and a few other goodies.

I would like to know what you guys think about this... Thanks for all help.

 

[Sky Pilot]

Hello, Gabe!

I think you made out like a bandit, buddy!
That Tejon is a great machine, and with those coils you can get good depth and target separation!
Regards

SkyPilot

 

[bigtim1973]

I almost got that from max myself!!!! Way to go. Once you get used to it I imagine that little ace 250 you have will probably wind up in the back seat or to loan out for a buddy. You will like it but you got to be patient with it and learn how to ground balance it properly. Good luck, Tim

 

[montepollock]

I have a tesoro Golden Max,Which seems to have a multi adjustable notch width,and deep scan mode, I have loaned out to a disabled friend,He loves it especially the light weight.
I didn,t like the auto detune pinpoint.
Much can be learned by detune,Target size,and on some detectors, pantera,Fisher 1236x2,1266x,etal, a low tone Detune can usually ID steel bottle caps.
That only seems to happen in Non metered detectors
I would appreciate any replies on thihs.
HH,Mont

 

[birdman]

I have both and in some soil conditions ,the V will be much better. I thought I had hunted out my old yard in North Dakota .I had found a ton of stuff with the cibola and then I traded an old fisher for a vaquero and my yard came back to life with targets.I could not believe what the Cibola had left behind but in mild soil it would be about the same depth. The tejon is the next one on my list.

 

[Woodland Detectors]

How is the machine working out Gabe?

 

[DirtfisherGabe]

I love this machine! I have dug some trash, but also 2 rings...Junk...but still 2 rings. I am a huge fan of the dual discrimination as well.

 

[Dan B]

I had a Tejon, but got the notion in my head that I needed a display. I went through a variety of machines over the next few years. When I sold the Tejon, my ring count dropped off to 0. I got discouraged digging nothing but clad. I relied too much on the screens, stopped digging pull tabs and zincs, but in the process stopped finding the good stuff. I'm done with that, and have a Tejon again. Maybe I'm just weak and should have dug more with the ID machines, but when the machine says "pull tab" 50 times in a row, and you dig a pull tab 50 times in a row, you start to get lazy. Trouble is, #51 might have been a ring that displayed as a pull tab!

Now with the Tejon I'm digging more, but I'm letting my eyes be the "bottom line" on discrimination. When I hunt an area now, I can leave pretty confident that I found everything that was there, and didn't let the machine "trick" me into leaving good targets behind.

The "straw that broke the camels back" was when I was air testing a variety of targets with my last ID machine, and discovered that the 1859 Victoria large cent I found some years ago* was totally ignored when I notched out pull tabs. So how many have of those have I missed in the last few years?? With the Tejon it's a smooth signal I would definitely dig.

Dan

* coincidentally, or not, that 1859 LC was found with an old Garrett Freedom Ace 2, which was a dual discriminator beep-and-dig