Ohio soil, "midwest" soil, and most east of central USA soils (not certain areas of the SE and NE) are considerably lighter in Fe than those West of the Rocky Mountains. Most Texas soil is extremely light. This Fe difference is what separates most detectors from the others. When the soil is lighter the Tejon beats the other detectors like a red-headed step child, and makes Explorer users somewhat bewildered when they encounter it.
When soil gets (too) full of magnetite/hematite, it starts to change things radically. Black sand is a detectorist's worst enemy. The Vaquero operates better as the black sand increases than the Tejon does, because it's recover speed is slightly quicker. I have to set my cz-70 at 1 1/2- 2 1/2 on it's GB scale, but friends in Ohio (for example) only set their cz at 5 to 7. This indicates twice as much iron in the soil here - as it has there. It makes a BIG difference in depth, 7" on the best of days (and very seldom), with a 5" average. I have seen soil so bad on the Washington coastal beaches that only a $50,000 magnetometer would work, and my Whites PI acted up before it got within 2 feet of it. In average soil though I see no difference at all between the depth of the Tejon and the Vaquero, but the Vaquero runs a bit quieter, regardless of which mode I run it in, and as black sand increases it starts to do a little better than the Tejon. The Tejon has a bit more raw power (gain) but it's sensitivity has to be turned down more often than the Vaquero's, so it defeats the higher gain - and puts it in the same ball field as the Tejon..The truth is that the Tejon was made to beat the Nautiluses, and it did. It also is very similar to a Fisher 1270, but lighter in weight. They both are primarily CW relic hunters, and good ones too.
In Ohio and most other areas east of the Rockies, the cz can run from a 5 to a 9 on the scale, it's a different world, but here in the west it's all different. The Tejon won the GNRS once, the Vaquero wasn't the one that did it. The Nautiluses won it for YEARS, but after the Tejon won it the Fisher F-75 took over, and most of the Nautie dealers quit pushing Nautilus's any more. In super-mild soil the Tejon has only 1/2" edge on the Vaquero, at best, but the Vaquero runs quieter.
LL
