Equinox 800 missing silver

[robby4570]

This argument reminds me of the guy who blames his rifle because he missed a deer at 50 yards. I got news for him,..... it ain't the rifle.

I have no experience with any of the detectors mentioned in this thread except the 800. But after 1000s of hours hunting mostly old parks and curbstrips, with an occasional yard or empy lot thown in, I have come to the conclusion the the 800 misses nothing that is detectable within its individual settings. However, I as the detectorist have missed a lot, either due to not understanding what I was hearing, or not getting the coil over the target.
In one particular park, I started out finding very little with the 800, but as I gained experience , I began finding more. Hunting over the same areas, but gridding in different directions, digging the " iffy " signals and putting up with bucketloads of falsing Iron, pulltabs and bottlecaps, I was able to find even more good stuff. Eventually, good targets became more and more rare. And just when I was coming to the conclusion there was nothing good left to find, I found my first and only seated coin --in an area I had been over at least a half dozen times-- and it was not even that deep. I could say the detector missed it before, but if I am being honest, it wasnt the detector. It was the detectorist that missed it.
Most of the people on here know a hell of alot more than I do about the technical aspects of many differet detectors. And I have to trust that the engineers at the detector companies know even more. But let's be truthful here. All of the modern detectors will detect metal. Some have a bit more depth capability , some are tuned to different levels of conductitvity, some handle mineralization better than others, but I don't believe any of them "miss" detectable targets if they are properly set up for the conditions.

Well said! The operator will have a bigger influence on success than any detector from a reputable company (ie not a Chinese knockoff machine, and they even copied the CTX!!!)

 

[jmaclen]

**DISCLAIMER** I AM NOT calling out this guy in particular with this statement...

I have seen plenty of allegedly "unbiased" reviews from guys who have tweaked one machine for better performance than the other in videos and it's obvious in a few, especially when you have a self-proclaimed fanboy of the detector that comes out on top. The only comparison I find valid is where two guys compare their respective machines that they have been swinging for at least 100 hours each. That way there can be no bias against either machines.

So, do you have an issue with the video itself, the video maker, with me or with everything?

If you watched the video, the CTX 3030 was the best performer on those recently buried dimes but not by much.

At the time of this video, Hunter GT was a Legend and Deus 2 dealer. He was not a dealer for Minelab detectors so what is the "fanboy" comment about?

 

[longbow62]

I think to get the most out of the 800 for finding silver in mild to medium dirt you run in Park1, F2-0, Recovery 4 (I just never liked less than a 4 recovery, but some people can handle it lower.), Horseshoe is on aka All-Metal, Ground balance at every site you hunt, Noise Cancel multiple times a hunt. Personally I always ran 5 tones. If you have really deep iron then Park2 is almost as good as Park1 for depth. Park2 will not false on deep iron as bad, but if you hunt in Park1 long enough you really learn what's iron and what's not with a pretty high probability. Park2 is the nickel getter. I've never seen any other machine or program hit deep nickels so hard. Park2 is simply amazing on nickels. If it wasn't for Park1 being a little better on deep silver Park2 would have been my go to program. When I relic hunted I did run Park2 pretty much exclusively.

 

[jmaclen]

But let's be truthful here. All of the modern detectors will detect metal. Some have a bit more depth capability , some are tuned to different levels of conductivity, some handle mineralization better than others, but I don't believe any of them "miss" detectable targets if they are properly set up for the conditions.

Exactly.

Sometimes the operator is at fault and sometimes its just the wrong detector for the job.

I have received some criticism for daring to say that a CTX or an Etrac are not the best detector for the ground mineralization I hunt in. I have owned both and detected many hours with them and simply found them to not be the best for me, where I hunt. These newer Equinox/Manticore/Deus 2/Legend type simultaneous multi frequency detectors just handle the amount of magnetite and volcanic material in the ground where I live and detect much better. Saying something like that does not make me a complete fool or someone who has had a different experience wrong, a liar, a fanboy or blind to the truth. There are no perfect detectors and there are no detectors that handle every ground mineralization situation. There are even pulse induction detectors that detect great on some types of mineralization and then have a lot of trouble on other types. It's just a fact.

This is the type of dirt that I hunt in every day. Those are three magnets that are smaller than that US nickel that are covered with magnetite/magnetic material. That is just from me waving the magnets over the surface of those dirt samples and I have already removed the bigger pieces of magnetite that can be #9 shotgun pellet to golf ball sized.

The CTX 3030 and Etrac do not like this level of iron mineralization one bit. Their sensitivity levels have to be cut way down to 60% or lower just to operate in this dirt and overall depth really suffers. I can run the Equinox models, Manticore, Deus 2 and Legend at 90% or a bit higher sensitivity in this dirt with no problems ground balancing or losing depth.

So, just recommending one detector or another because it works for you or me in a specific area does not automatically mean that same detector model will solve someone else's issue, like missing silver especially if they are detecting in challenging ground conditions. There is a lot more involved and anytime I see marketing blurbs that claim a VLF detector can handle any type of mineralization.......give me a break.

 

[cellrdwellr]

So, do you have an issue with the video itself, the video maker, with me or with everything?

If you watched the video, the CTX 3030 was the best performer on those recently buried dimes but not by much.

At the time of this video, Hunter GT was a Legend and Deus 2 dealer. He was not a dealer for Minelab detectors so what is the "fanboy" comment about?

I think he is referring to good old sharp shooter maybe lab coat?