Minelab Equinox 6 inch DD Coil Review

It seems that I post more negative threads than positive lately. I think I'm the forum reaper.

I had the 6 inch coil and took it to a few very heavily hunted sites. In my opinion it offered little advantage over the stock coil. I dug like two mercs out of those sites.....total value a buck fifty maybe. I also struggled with iron more with the 6 inch. Factoring in coverage and depth the seperation was not worth it in my opinion.

A technical man who loves his numbers on another forum put the seperation value at about 12 percent on another forum.

I am not here to say the coil isn't a good coil. Or you are wrong for using it. Some people love the weight or small pinpointing area. Both are legitimate points. My point is that the Multi Q detector doesn't seem to need a smaller coil. At least not like detectors of the past.

It will be interesting to see the forum opinions on the new Vanquish as far as coil sizes. Another source of data.

Good luck with coil.

I hunt in areas with a ton of trash and crazy amounts of iron.
Masking is my main problem and you are correct...the standard coil is excellent at finding masked targets, probably better than any other detector I own using standard coils.
However I have hunted many of the exact same trashed out park sites using both coils to compare volume of finds and in my experience the sniper kills it...there is a noticeable difference.
In my dirt and my sites, anyway.
Your milage may indeed vary in other parts of the country.

I changed to the sniper when I got it, used it a few months and switched back to the standard for a bit...soon enough I had to put the sniper back in and I have no plans to switch coils again anytime soon,
I am a believer.

Like Gary correctly noticed, the 6" coil is a specialty coil.

If I try to hunt areas of a park, field or yard that are packed with aluminum trash, I will go to the 6" coil first to clear out any obvious shallow good targets that might be masked by all of the junk.

I also use it especially for prospecting in rock and boulder filled creeks, among rocky hillsides and particularly in high mineralization where the small footprint of the 6" coil handles the ground interference much better. Obviously, it does extremely well on very small gold nuggets and flakes.

I have used it in areas that are filled with old square nails. I did not find it handled iron any better than the 11" coil as far as falsing. I could find targets in-between the nails easier than with the 11".

I have not noticed any appreciable difference in ground balance numbers, or numerical target ID numbers compared to the 11" coil.

Jeff

I hunt a lot of schoolyards/tot lots and I only use the 6" coil. The 11" coil is great but the 6" cuts through trash like a laser in these areas. I find that I don't use my pinpointer as much due to the accuracy and size of the 6" coil. Just my $.02

I tend to only use my Equinox at really trashy sites and use the CTX on cleaner spots, so I keep the 6" coil permanently mounted on the Nox. The stock 11" coil is very good, but the smaller one definitely has some nice advantages. As mentioned above, it still gets great depth for its size, is able to snipe good targets from between trash items, super easy to pinpoint with, and makes the detector feel considerably lighter. The only negative is less coverage. Not a big deal to me since I go really slow at heavily hunted trashy sites anyway.

Enjoyed the vid.