I was most misfortunate in the fact that I used this machine, (Pioneer EX...Wally World version) for my first 3 months.
To be fair, I have some of the worst soil in the country as far as mineralization, and mine seemed to have a few extra problems most don't seem to have.
The good...
It will find coins pretty easily, and other stuff as long as they are not to deep.
The bad...
Eats batteries like candy, mine had no head phone jack so it might be better if you can and do use headphones.
That depth thing. In my soil, maybe I can get 4 inches on a quarter...maybe.
Most other targets usually 2-3 inches was my limit.
Aluminum depth was great...center of the earth, depth-wise.
Really bad at pinpointing.
No pinpoint button, and even the xing thing is a very large area...larger than most others.
The only thing that saved me was buying a Harbor Freight pinpointer 2 weeks in.
The really bad...probably on mine only....
This unit cannot handle mineralization at all...probably one good reason why my depth was almost nonexistent.
I also think my coil was wound incorrectly because not only was it the worst at pinpointing, every target was at least 2 inches to the left and 2 inches north than where you would think it would be.
I did learn to deal with it...eventually, but it was not easy.
The worst problem I had was falsing.
On the lower 2 settings on the sense it would false on almost every swing...on the highest it WOULD false on every swing.
This was probably due to my mineralization problem and I suspect maybe the unit sensitivity was turned up too high internally.
I did take it apart and there are some adjustments I could make...I think...but First Texas was no help in telling me any info on how to do this myself.
They wanted me to send it in, and I told them I would not spend one more dollar on shipping or anything else on this machine, and never will.
The one blessing in disguise, I eventually learned to pick out false signals from the real ones due to this huge problem, and I can still do that to this day on any detector I use in any situation.
Probably better than most.
Falsing never bothers me anymore, and I usually hunt on the highest sensitivity settings on all my detectors nowadays...even in bad sites with high EM.
3 months after struggling with mine, I bought a Tesoro and after 3 swings I realized just how bad mine really was...at everything.
Others have posted way less problems in other parts of the country than me, and were way happier with the way it worked for them, but there was a thread last year on the worst detector opinions and this one was commented on by the most members in that thread.
I hope yours works better than mine did, but once you try another...any other...you will see what I am talking about here.
Even the higher end Bounty Hunters have way better reviews than this low end unit.
I did end up figuring this one out, even with all the problems, and it became much more fun and less frustrating when I did.
It is a metal detector and it will work and find plenty if you learn it, but eventually aim for something else one day and you will probably end up being much happier when you see how the rest of the field stacks up against this one.
FYI...The Quicksilver, Pioneer EX and the 1st Texas Pilot are all the same models under different names.
For now...use it, learn it well, have fun and I hope you find lots of clad, gold and silver to help you with your next upgrade.
HH