The Minelab Etrac vs The Lowly Nickel

pigEye

Senior Member
Joined
May 30, 2014
Messages
380
Location
Merica
I know that our ground is bad around here, but since I have been swinging the mighty E, my 5cent count has tanked. Everything is great up and until you go past the 4" mark on the pro-coil. Once that happens, all bets are off. My hot-rodded compadre can compete with the E on nickels in my ground... let that sink in.

My 1/10 of the purchase price analog, single tone detector can accurately ID nickels down to the same depth as my otherwise badass coin machine!

I have pulled wheats out at a measured 8" before with the E, so I know its potential - it just sucks on nickels at depth!

Is this normal?

Can anyone else confirm this?

Am I alone?
 
I too have a stock Compadre with 8" coil and it's a nice nickel finder. It gets good depth on coins in general in the couple of mild sites I've taken it just to fart around,"good depth" being 4-7" max depending on the coin. I also have an Explorer2 and CTX, and I can find nickels just fine with either. With the Explorer it's just a matter of listening for them,you'll find them. The CTX can be tone adjusted so they sound like high conductors,so I don't miss them. I dug 2 Shield nickels in a rotted out coin purse at 6" the other evening,and the VDI was just like a single nickel and spot on with a strong response. I've found that running wide open is the way to go with the Explorer...in Ferrous sounds. Like the Captain said,you just have to tune your ear for them. Unless I have some straight up nasty ground, either the Explorer or CTX will see them to 8" with the stock coil and good ID.
 
How much descrim do you run? I open the FE line way up and seem to get them just fine, when running a tight FE line they are hit or miss for me.

I run pretty much wide open. The issue is that once you get past about 4 inches, nickels start tid jumping just like tabs and other junk.
 
From what I've seen FBS units don't hit lower conductors quite as deep as high conductors, but they're still no slouch on nickels in my ground. Just a few weeks ago I got a badly worn Shield on a 10-11 signal at a solid 8" deep. Signal didn't sound all that great, but was obviously good enough to make me dig it. I got similar depth on nickels from my old Etrac.

I've owned a lot of detectors over the years and I can say without a doubt that I've dug more nickels with the Etrac & CTX than any of them. Mostly due to the accurate TID.
 
I have done well with nickels and my E. Granted it the depth isn't quite up to par with the E's ability on silver, but I've hit some sites where just about all I pulled was deep nickels.

Watch them numbers. FE really counts on nickels.
 
My etrac is the best nickel killer I've ever owned. Rivaling my CZ's. Just last month I hit a Buf at 9 inches and V at 10+ inches. I run a very tight nickel notch as seen in my videos. Make sure your machine is set to trash-high. Ground - difficult and deep off. Run conductive - mult and manual sens as high as you can but stable.
 
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