Tejon users - performance in mineralization?

[BMan]

I've been reading for hours about the Tejon. I've read different posts on different forums, reviews, everything I could find.

There is some conflicting information regarding the performance of the Tejon in higher levels of ground mineralization. Some say you can ground balance out any effects of mineralization, while others say the Tejon suffers from higher mineralization due to its higher gain.


If you own a Tejon, what is your take on its performance in varying levels of mineralization?

What part of the country/world are you in?

I've also read that in higher levels of mineralization, the Vaquero is the equal of the Tejon.

As a Vaquero user, I have been considering picking up a Tejon; however, considering the considerable amount of hematite I have in my area, would there be any use in adding the Tejon to my arsenal?

Thanks for any input.

 

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[oldbill]

I had a Tejon for about 4 months got rid of it, it was awful in the land around SE Kansas and in the uk. bILL

 

[AUDuke]

I hade a Tejon and it was the worst detector I had, 4" inches on a nickel, tops. Got rid of it and got a Vaquero & its great in my dirt here in Arizona.

 

[LuckyLarry]

Hey OldBill, EasyMoney here.

I had a Tejon and in non- mineralized soil it had great depth but still suffered from other electrical/magnetic interference. For me in this high FE soil it sucked big time. I traded it for a Browning A-bolt and i got the best end of the deal, by far.

Larry

 

[John (Ma)]

I have the Tejon here in Massachusetts and have used it in CT, MA, VT and NH and love the thing! I like the Vaquero as well, but am currently selling the V and keeping the Tejon.

 

[rmptr]

Hey OldBill, EasyMoney here.

I had a Tejon and in non- mineralized soil it had great depth but still suffered from other electrical/magnetic interference. For me in this high FE soil it sucked big time. I traded it for a Browning A-bolt and i got the best end of the deal, by far.

Larry

Gosh !
Glad to have found your post !

Is it that the front end amplifier runs 'hot' causing it to be jittery in FE soil which hacks it's depth capability?

Best
rmptr

 

[LuckyLarry]

rmptr

It's the gain that causes the overamplification, regardless of whether it's front end or primary in the preamp stage, etc. This is why so many Garretts, the Tejon, the Fisher 1270, and most Nauties have so much difficulty in really hot soil.

It often reminds me of someone playing music so loud that the sound becomes too distorted and the words too.

Tesoro's main site has some info on this subject and I think Thomas Dankowski wrote some about it too. George Payne also wrote extensively about this subject. So did Fisher.

You can also read about it @ Metaldetectors.com, about halfway down the page.

LL

 

[Jerry Ga.]

It seems strange to me that we see reports coming out of Australia that the Tejon is able to handle the worst case mineralization in the goldfields there. As the first field tests stated, this is a very tight detector and the GB and disc settings are critical for optimum performance. I personaly feel that most bad ground issues with this detector are caused by operator error, specificaly not keeping a close check on the GB setting as one hunts. The placement of the GB knob makes it easy for it to get bumped out of adjustment by the headphone cord, brush and such. An unwanted movement of only a 1/4 turn can throw this machine off and reduce depth.
HH, Jerry

 

[LuckyLarry]

Jerry the soils in Australia do have mineralization, but not very much "iron" AKA Fe, "mineralization", the massive amounts of hematite and/or magnetite found in most of the Western USA, the "iron belt".

If I use my CZ-70 in Oregon, or California, or Washington, or Idaho, Nevada, etc I would have to set my GB at 1-3, but while using it in Ohio or Iowa, or Tennessee, or Australia, I would set it between 5 and 8. This means that there is roughly 2X to as much as 8X as much "mineralization" west of the Rockies as East of it, or in Australia. "Mineralization" in metal detectorist terms normally does not refer to Copper, Barium, Cobalt, etc, it refers to iron & iron oxides only.

I have found as much as a half cup of iron in one cup of soil in Oregon or Washington, = 1/2 soil + 1/2 iron. On one beach in Washington State the soil is B-L-A-C-K with iron - and not even a $12,000 PI works there. In Australia you will NEVER find that much iron in the soil, not even in an iron mine.

The Tejon is HIGHLY unstable in the West, "the iron belt", (West meaning the "West", as in from the Rockies westarward, not the central USA). In most of Texas the Garretts work very well and often go very deep, because there is very little iron in that soil. Ask the owner of East Texas Metal Detectors, Keith Wills, about this. He is the man responsible for most of our super-depth, DD coils, autotune, and auto GB detectors today. Additionally, the Tejon uses a too-slow autotune to work well in high-rion soils. and that causes it to sound off when trying to cancel all that FE, because it's recover speed is too slow to handle the mess. The same thing is true with the Fisher 1270, but not with the 1236x-2. In that case it's the high vs low gain that affects it most.

When tried on the high-iron (AKA "black sand", meaning magnetite mineralization) beaches, salt or non-salt, the Tejon might as well be used as a boat anchor. Same thing goes for most of the newer Garretts. The high iron there will drive a person nearly mad. The Compadres and/or Silver Sabres, uMaxes, etc do not have that problem there at all though and will also go deeper, primarily because of their low gain (power, aka lower voltage to searchcoil) resulting in a smoother, less interfered operation. Note: I use the term "lower voltage" loosely though, because for practical and non-technical purposes, that will suffice as a reference. I'm trying to keep things simple here because sometimes I'm told that I often make things a bit to complex. Forgive me if I mess up.

Now if I went to Georgia the Tejon would work MUCH, MUCH better! In fact it is one real deep sunuvagun. Australia does have some iron in the soils but Georgia for the most part has a bit less.

And yes, a super-fast auto GB (actually ALL current metal detectors bought today have auto GB) can run circles around a super=fast man operating his manual GB every 5 seconds or less in rapidly changing, high magnetite black sand soils. Minelab discovered this quickly, and so did Tesoro and Fisher. Garrett and Nautilus don't care, their market is primarily found in Eastern and Southern USA, and Western Europe.

LL

 

[Jerry Ga.]

Thanks larry for that info. It would seem then that a high iron content in the soil is the real problem. The soil in my area of coastal S.C. is not bad but I do run into changing ground when hunting in the river flood plains because of alluvial depoists. I have heard that it is next to impossible to hunt with any detector in northeastern Alabama because of the iron content in the soil.
Thanks, Jerry

 

[LuckyLarry]

That's about right Jerry...

The simplified formula is:

Too much gain (AKA power) x too much iron mineralization in the soil = a bad metal detector experience.

LL

 

[oldbill]

Hi Easy Money,

Thanks for the information, you got it all right on the money! Best to You!!!! Bill

 

[LuckyLarry]

Hey Bill

Well, I'm just trying to help out.

Yours Truly is now living in Alaska! Good to hear from you.

I'm thinking about getting a GoldBugIII. What do you think about that? Alaska has good AND bad soils in the gold fields.

EM

 

[oldbill]

Go for it EM and dig a lot of that yellow stuff. Best to You! Bill