Myers Depot Metal Detectors

What is the best detector in heavy iron?

Mg240

Mg240

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I currently use an AT Pro, have used it for a year and I am impressed with its ability. But in heavy iron patches I feel like it doesn't perform very well. I am looking for a good machine in iron, and have been thinking about a nokta impact or Xp Dues. Anyone switch from the At Pro to either one that I mentioned, and had better results?

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the xp dues to me in iron doesn't do as well as the at pro with a small coil on it... I have both machine and like both for their own reasons.

I run Gary's hot program in 18 kHz with the same program but in 4khz one channel above ...I switch between the two when I think I hear iron...just my way. I am sure there are better ways

My at pro. I run PRO 0 no discrimination full sensitivity switching between Pro custom with iron at 29...iron off until I think I need it...
this has worked for me.

In iron you can try this..

Notch everything out up to 70 then iron out at 40...you will only get high targets but no iron and cherry pick ...

I have found over 25 rings since March this way....NO GOLD THIS WAY THOUGH

I also have owned the at pro allot longer...I am sure there is some tweaking I still can do on the deus

is a great move up from the pro....
 
Mg240 said:
I currently use an AT Pro, have used it for a year and I am impressed with its ability. But in heavy iron patches I feel like it doesn't perform very well. I am looking for a good machine in iron, and have been thinking about a nokta impact or Xp Dues. Anyone switch from the At Pro to either one that I mentioned, and had better results?

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Your question can be hard to answer depending.

Here's why.

If we rephrased your question, what is the best 11" coil attached to detector hunting in iron?? = Deus 11" LF coil.

If we rephrased and asked what is the best detector coil combo wearing a 9" round coil ?? = IMO Deus round HF coil.

If we rephrased and asked what is the best smallest coil detector ??? , good candidate here might be Nokta Impact with smallest football coil.

You see where this is going?

The Deus will get you depth and good separation for coil size to boot.
One coil setup, granted you likely would have to hunt a site multiple times using different settin to make all finds detector is capable of finding.

So it takes mentioning both a coil and detector combo, then we can maybe rat better when comparing.

And this would go for hunting in cleaner ground too.

Now a person could ask as far as money spent what is the best detector /coil combo to do xx ??

Again here different answers likely would fit the bill.

Loads of variables.
 
tnsharpshooter said:
Your question can be hard to answer depending.

Here's why.

If we rephrased your question, what is the best 11" coil attached to detector hunting in iron = Deus 11" LF coil.

If we rephrased and asked what is the best detector coil combo wearing a 9" round coil = IMO Deus round HF coil.

If we rephrased and asked what is the best smallest coil detector,,, good candidate here might be Nokta Impqct with smallest football coil.

You see where this is going?

The Deus will get you depth and good separation for coil size to boot.
One coil setup, granted you likely would have to hunt a site multiple times using different settin to make all finds detector is capable of finding.

So it takes mentioning both a coil and detector combo, then we can maybe rat better when comparing.

And this would go for hunting in cleaner ground too.
Click to expand...
I get what you're saying. I primarily use the 5x8 on my At Pro, better separation and not much depth lost compared to the 8.5x11.

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I hunt a lot of civil war era and colonial home sites and they are loaded with iron. If a person takes the time to learn the deus and also to learn how to hunt in that thick iron he will do good. Hunting in thick iron is WAYYY different than hunting in clean ground. There will be blips, peeps, squeaks and all kind of signal variations and if you don't know your detectors language it doesn't matter which one you buy. I think the deus is best in iron hands down . I don't care for the nokta , mackro racer2, or at pro but others do. Iron is where the good stuff hides and its where I hunt 90% of the time....
 
Impact with the small elliptical is extremely good in iron. Recently pulled a 1906 dime at 8.5-9 inches with it in heavy iron.

Best would be the one you like and feel confident to hunt in those places with, and one you can operate the machine to it's max capabilities. Which depending on the machine takes many hours of practice in test situations you set up and in the field use.
 
Aka Machines such as Sorex pro, Signum MFT,Signum MFD can be good as well. I personally think it does better in iron than the Deus but there is more learning to know the correct settings. Your LT bounds lowered and discrimination set allows you to see the ferrous and non ferrous targets together in iron infested areas but it is not carved in stone. You have to approach on the targets correctly in order to pick non ferrous out of ferrous, depending on the lay of the targets, nothing is going to pick an area totally clean. I have found silver with iron marks where it laid right on the nail with both, the Aka and the Deus. With the Deus, it requires full tones, no iron wrap set and listen for a high tones and investigate iffy targets. The high squeak doesn't lie, there is a high conductor there in the mix, it may be difficult to sort it out. Best thing you might do is use whatever you have, approach an iron infested area at every multiple angle you can think of and pick as much non ferrous targets out as you can. As you pick non ferrous, you will most likely remove some ferrous and that can open up an opportunity for finding others that might have been masked by it. It doesn't take a lot to mask in some cases, its the direction in which you approach the target with the coil that can determine different results.
 
Personally i can't remember a time when i dug a coin and there was iron or nails etc on the exact same level, they were always above or below the coin.
All the tests you see posted like the nail board test give you a guide for setting up your machine, but i see more benefits in the 3D tests in relation to my hunting.

Also if like me your targets are deeper in iron and mineralised soil, say 6"+ there's less benefit from a small coil shallow iron sifter as imho that's about their effective limit, and that's where i need a unit that is good at both depth and separation.

On the shallow stuff, Deus and Rutus are excellent, but so are many of the European units that maybe don't get noticed that much, such as Golden mask or Deeptech, some of these are excellent value.
 
I've heard many good things about the Rutus Alter 71. Detector has been around since last year. Never personally used one but I've seen videos and separation is just as good if not better than Deus.
 
Hands down the deus. The French made machine is made for hunting sites with sometimes 1000+ years history and a gazillion nails. No other machine I’ve used can touch it... in iron.



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My vote goes for the White's IDX Pro with the 5.3 concentric. With the 2-filter design, you can crawl along very slowly, and the lower frequency (6.59 kHz) is very stable and quiet in the iron. It doesn't pick up all the little bits of decaying iron and is able to see through to the good stuff. I keep one around for just this reason.
 
Last edited:
I'm an at pro user and I know what you mean about hunting in iron infested areas. One of my favorite relic sites is full of rusty nails of all sizes. I finally decided to try out a Tesoro Golden uMax because I heard that analog machines discriminate iron better and the golden is multi-tone.

I was stunned by how quiet and stable the golden is. It will still chirp on large spike nails but it ignores 3-inch and smaller nails and it finds brass and silver items that are mixed in with the nails without trouble. It's like magic.

The golden uMax is not cheap or easy to find but I really like it in nail sites.

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TabZilla said:
Its true the Mojave is a beast in iron, but alas Beep they will never believe us.
Click to expand...

I do...I found this big UK Penny and as far as I could tell it was centimeters away from this huge rusty nail if not touching it...

photostudio_1509379399698.jpg


Then again I have also used my F70 and found things like this lady that was in a small hole with these two friends trying to hide her very close...


photostudio_1509379673944.jpg

Plus these experiences were not unique, I have done it more than once using both detectors.

The Fishers are supposed to be pretty good in iron but I have done a few things in some insanely infested iron sites with mine that many just find hard to believe...consistently.
Some of the things I have done with Tesoros well, Tesoro owners would believe it, anyway.


I think a lot of this iron hunting stuff might have more to do with learning your chosen tool a bit more than just adequately no matter what weapon you use.
I believe most detectors have a language and then there is also a deeper, hidden language that they all have also that can have added benefits for those that explore those deeper behaviors.

Some might be better at tasks like this because of technology for all I know but I haven't swung every detector out there so I have no idea.
I can only report back on the few I have owned, learned and used pretty successfully in some pretty intense iron sites that many avoid because of the challenges.
 
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