X-70... Love and hate!

[SwampHunter]

I got my new X-70 this past Saturday. I didn't get to get out with it much that day. The next day my brother in law and I hit an old house place that was there during the CW. I first put on the 9" MF coil. I put it in all metal, auto ground balanced and then I was off. I started finding bullets as soon as I hit started hitting the edge of the relic field. I went ahead and outlined the relic field and found several more bullets. To work the site I switched over to the 6" HF DD, put it in pattern 1 and worked it slow. My brother in law and I found so many bullets that I named the site The Ammo Dump. Most of the bullets were post CW bullets, but not too far after that. I never once dug a nail. I was loving this machine!
Today I went to an old church yard that was established during the late 1800's. They still have church here but it's not the original building. I have pulled some nice old coins from this yard just cherry picking the shallow targets with the Silver uMax. Since they still have service here it is full of foil, pull tabs and aluminum can trash. I hit it this afternoon with the X-70 tipped with the 6" HF DD in pattern 1 and worked it slow. Not one single coin but I found a ton of modern trash. I know that I haven't cleaned this yard out of coins. I dug everything that was even an iffy signal. The only other thing I found was a fake ring.
I plan on ordering the 9" LF coil within the week but I am not sure if this would help or not. I am going to try the 9" MF coil tommorrow to see if this helps.
Not sure if I just didn't put my coil over a coin but it was discouraging, but then again not digging any nails was a huge blessing.

 

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[johnnycat]

I have been using my 6" HFDD in AM with 99 tones and really finding more coins then I ever did with my MXT. Heck, I'm even finding nickels, which used to be a rarity. I got the LF 9" and still undecided about it. I'm sure some of the folks with a lot more experience then I have will chime in and help you out. Good luck.

 

[Rifleman]

Part of the problem could be that the 6" HF coil is so darn sensitive that it tends to pick up the small junk as well as the good stuff. You can't have your cake and eat it too. I have had good luck with the small HF coil, but I have dug my fair share of junk also. The better you get to know the machine, the less junk you will dig. That said, you will most likely pass up some good targets if you don't dig every solid target you hit.

Good hunting, John K

 

[vondrewvious]

I happen to love the LF coil especially in the high iron sites. One thing I have learned on the xterra is, I believe that hunting in any of the patterns you will miss many good targets. I have found that iron masks the good targets and the machine will null out on the iron and not signal on the coin. This is drastically improved by hunting in all metal. Eventhough AM is not a true all metal. But my theory is that the machine is fast enough to signal on many targets in close proximity to eachother. You hear this in AM. But if you are over 3 pieces and in pattern mode than it sometimes will null on the junk target. Let your ears hear it all.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

For coins, all metal all the time with 3, 4, or 28 tones. The only way to hunt. And go S L O W L Y. I've had the 70 since it came out, and if I'm not in all metal, I'm in prospecting. I never use the patterns.

 

[KurtB]

I personally like the medium freq. 6" coil for hunting in modern trash. It don't get quite as good separation but it is not as sensitive to all the tiny bits of shredded garbage. The 9" low freq. coil is hot on high conductors and helps in iron. Like many others, I too use no patters. Good luck on your next outing.

Kurt

 

[SwampHunter]

Went back to the yard this afternoon and hit it hard in pattern 1 with the 9" MF coil. I dug every single signal that sounded good within a 2 hour period. I cleared out a ton of trash and came away with 2 clad pennies.
Tommorrow I will try it in all metal mode. I know there is alot more good stuff there. I also know that I will eventually get the hang of this machine. Just like my other machines it's going to take some getting used to.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

 

[johnnycat]

For coins, all metal all the time with 3, 4, or 28 tones. The only way to hunt. And go S L O W L Y. I've had the 70 since it came out, and if I'm not in all metal, I'm in prospecting. I never use the patterns.

I agree. That's what I've been doing lately and like it. Let your ears do the walking.

 

[SwampHunter]

In prospecting mode do you just dig everything the machine picks up?
I get a ton of targets in prospecting mode.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

When you get a signal in prospecting mode, just switch to all metal to check it out. If you get no signal in all metal, you better dig it, cause it's deep.

 

[SwampHunter]

I take it that you don't use IM in prospecting mode?


I can tell it's going to take me lots of digging time to get used to this machine.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

I'm not sure what IM is. Maybe I'm missing something. It's an easy machine to learn. Takes a couple of outings.

 

[SwampHunter]

IM is Iron Mask in prospecting mode.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

Wow, how stupid am I? I set the iron mask at 5, but if you set it at 20 it still won't ignore much. You can test it on certain items to get an idea. I set it at 5 because it cuts out tiny iron.

 

[SwampHunter]

Almost all day today I have been reading up on the machine and trying to learn a bit more about it. I am more of a hands on learning type of person rather than a read and learn type of person. So any instructions have to be straight this is what you do type instructions. I visited the FaqFaq at another site and tried to learn as much as I could. I have always thought we had mild mineralization in the soil here, but after learning how to use the hidden soil testing feature I found out that my soil was a low medium. My soil came in just around 10,852 to 15,080 depending on what part of the county I was in. I didn't test the swamp today since the road down to it was bad muddy. I thought that was pretty cool.


After I made my last post I went down to the yard to give it another go for a bit. I first tried prospecting mode, but abandoned it since the yard is bad full of modern trash and I would have to check every ten seconds. Lots of deep targets there that would show in prospecting mode but wouldn't show in coin/treasure mode. I can't really dig deep in this yard so it would do me no good anyway. I switched it over to coin/treasure mode and then to all metal. I started swinging and then hit on a screw cap. It bounced a bit so I figured it was trash before I dug it, but still wanted to make sure. Next I dug a pulltab. It too bounced a bit, but I still dug it. I started passing the bouncy items. I hit one signal for just a breif second. It was one of those that you know you hit the edge of something good so I relocated it. It came in at a good soild 32. I dug a penny. I ignored alot of other bouncy signals and then I hit another good signal at 12 but it bounced to 11 and then back to 12. I figured I would dig this one since it didn't jump much. I dug a clad nickel. Then the rain set in and I had to cut the trip short. I started listening alot more on this trip. I know how to do this since I did it with my Silver uMax and the Ace250 as well. For some reason I have let this new machine intimidate me a bit and forgot what I have learned from my other machines.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

Well the Faqfaq section you read has great information, but way too much to process. The 70 is really an easy machine to learn. I pretty much do this-turn it on, auto noise cancel, ground tracking, all metal, sensitivity as high as is possible, whatever tones you want, and then have at it. Dig whatever numbers that appeal to you. Keep in mind that at times a good deep target will come up as iron. If you go three tones and dig every high tone and some or all medium tones, you'll be good to go. That's about it for me. Pretty simple. You can make it more complicated if you want, but you don't have to.

 

[johnnycat]

Almost all day today I have been reading up on the machine and trying to learn a bit more about it. I am more of a hands on learning type of person rather than a read and learn type of person. So any instructions have to be straight this is what you do type instructions. I visited the FaqFaq at another site and tried to learn as much as I could. I have always thought we had mild mineralization in the soil here, but after learning how to use the hidden soil testing feature I found out that my soil was a low medium. My soil came in just around 10,852 to 15,080 depending on what part of the county I was in. I didn't test the swamp today since the road down to it was bad muddy. I thought that was pretty cool.


After I made my last post I went down to the yard to give it another go for a bit. I first tried prospecting mode, but abandoned it since the yard is bad full of modern trash and I would have to check every ten seconds. Lots of deep targets there that would show in prospecting mode but wouldn't show in coin/treasure mode. I can't really dig deep in this yard so it would do me no good anyway. I switched it over to coin/treasure mode and then to all metal. I started swinging and then hit on a screw cap. It bounced a bit so I figured it was trash before I dug it, but still wanted to make sure. Next I dug a pulltab. It too bounced a bit, but I still dug it. I started passing the bouncy items. I hit one signal for just a breif second. It was one of those that you know you hit the edge of something good so I relocated it. It came in at a good soild 32. I dug a penny. I ignored alot of other bouncy signals and then I hit another good signal at 12 but it bounced to 11 and then back to 12. I figured I would dig this one since it didn't jump much. I dug a clad nickel. Then the rain set in and I had to cut the trip short. I started listening alot more on this trip. I know how to do this since I did it with my Silver uMax and the Ace250 as well. For some reason I have let this new machine intimidate me a bit and forgot what I have learned from my other machines.

I like my X-70 so much I convinced my brother to get one. He has been metal detecting for over 30 years and the X-70 got him all twisted up. We talked on the phone for about an hour and he finally realized he was making it more complicated than it really is. I think we all tend to do thatbut, it all works out when we get back to the basics.

 

[BamaBill]

Yeah, the flexibility of use is one of the reasons I like my X-terra so much more than my MXT. I too use mine in AM and listen to the tones. You can make it as simple as you want or use most of the features to cherry pick (understanding that you will miss some things, but won't dig much trash either). I just was never as good at reliably seperating trash from good stuff with my MXT and I've been using it a whole lot longer than I have the X-terra. I have dug a lot,lot of trash with my MXT and not that much good stuff. I've already been doing a whole lot better with the X-terra 70.

 

[SwampHunter]

I decided I wasn't going to let this machine get the best of me. All of the tones drive me nuts so I put it on two tones in coin/treasure mode and one tone in prospecting mode. I ran all metal in coin/treasure mode and had the discrimination in prospecting mode set on 10. I auto noise canceled, auto ground balanced and then tweaked the ground balance just a bit. I hit the yard in prospecting mode. I found a target and then switched over to coin/treasure. The target was too deep for the coin/treasure mode so I went ahead and dug it. I pulled a round pulltab from right around 10 inches. I decided I didn't want to dig that deep again since I was just doing a quick hunt. I went over the area that I had gone over before and found a penny that I missed. I then hit the outside edge and found another penny, then a quarter and then a small bracelet that was a child's toy jewelry. I also dug a few pull tabs and screw on pop lids.

I was very pleased in the operation of this machine today and have gained faith in it.
Thanks to all who replied.

 

[Shenandoah Digger]

When I first got the 70 and tried the 28 tone option, I said I would never use it because it drove me crazy also. After a while I started to play around with it and really liked it. But that was after I knew the machine well. You may find you like it after learning the machine.