AT Pro Coils

Smaller coils are more sensitive to small gold jewelery. Small gold jewelry intended definition is women/girls rings or smaller, such as chains, earrings and pendants. Concentric coils have a "cone shaped" search area. DD coils a somewhat of a straight down "putty knife" search area. You can see basically how a DD coil works by folding a piece of paper in half and then stand it on end. That is the shape of signal of the DD coil. DD coils can "cut" through moderate to highly mineralized soil better. The 5X8 DD coil is a workhorse and does well in MOST situations. It is sensitive to small gold and separates targets well. The Super Sniper coil is a 4 1/2" concentric coil and is extremely sensitive to small gold. It also is the coil preferred by many when detecting around playground equipment, park benches, and many other obstacles found at parks and schools. The Sniper coil is useful for target separation, sacrificing depth for target identification at those sites that are heavily infested with aluminum foil, pulltabs and bottle caps and other assorted unwanted targets. I personally have found gold jewelry with each. It's really not about which coil picks up gold better, it is about having the correct coil for the correct site application you are hunting. Some will say just go with the 5X8 coil, some will say why would a person take a chance on missing a gold by not having the correct coil. It is definitely is not a one size fits all when it comes to searching for lost gold jewelry. The choice is yours to make. Good luck and happy hunting.

Thank you very much, your response was very helpful. I'm going to an old pool area and I thought maybe "search" for gold first then go back over it with the large coil for the coins. I'll have a lot of time to do this so going over it twice is no big deal. The gentleman that steered me toward the concentric has ALOT of gold rings to show for it, I believe 147 gold ones for the year. Were he goes I'm not sure, but I would think it speaks for itself. If anyone would like to add anything else feel free.

I'm not as experienced as many, but I'll share my $.02... I bought the 5x8DD when I bought my AT Pro, based on what I've read about it on this site. I use my 5x8DD most of the time. The machine is a lot lighter and better balanced with it, and the 5x8 pinpoints and separates targets much better. I only put the stock bigger coil on if I'm going to be somewhere that has very little trash and I want max coverage. I feel the depth difference is very minimal between the two.

I haven't used a concentric or the little sniper puck, so I can only comment on the 8.5x11 vs the 5x8. I prefer the 5x8 by a great margin over the stock coil. I hunt mostly tot lots and really old home sites that have tons of trash in the ground.

EDIT: I just found the one place where I wish I had the sniper. The 5x8 was finding me a lot, but I finally hit one place where it was sooo super trashy I wish I had the smaller one. Same site I wish I had the big coil on for the open areas..... unless you want to swap a lot, I think the 5x8 is the best compromise.