I owned a Musketeer Advantage when they first came out around 2002. I remember it was very good for finding silver coins. Unfortunately I had sell off most of my stuff including the Musky in order to move my residence. This was back in 2004. This spring I decided to get back into this hobby and began a marathon of trying different detectors to find one that suited me. My wife rolls her eyes as I read this to her
I lost a few dollars in this process as well. These included the Tesoro Vaquero, Garrett ACE 250, Minelab X-Terra 305 and Minelab Sovereign XS-2. My favorite of these was the Sovereign XS-2. Unfortunately, this did not work well in my neighborhood do to RF interference, power lines, etc.
Just last week Monday I found on eBay a new condition Musketeer Advantage Pro Pack with TS 800 and 1000 coils, rechargeable battery pack, AA battery pack, hip mount bag, factory warranty, etc. so I jumped on the opportunity. The musky arrived last Wednesday after only two days. I quickly converted this to a straight shaft mod as I dislike the standard S shaft. It is now Sunday and I have tested the Musky in my troublesome yard and at several park and school locations. I have to say at this point that I am thoroughly pleased with this detector and it has exceeded my expectations. The amazing thing is that carefully ground balancing the detector in all metal has also resulted in tuning out most of the RF interference for some reason. The worst place in my yard for RF interference is where I have freshly buried a quarter and dime at 8 inches. These have only been in the ground for 3 months now. With the smaller TS 800 coil (7 inch dia.), this detector responds to these coins with a very sweet mellow tone that repeats from every direction and with every pass of the coil. This was with disc set to max and 75% power. This is impressive as none of the other detectors I have tried this year have come close to this. The Tesoro Vaquero would not find them at all. I could not tune this detector to eliminate the RF interference. It worked great at a local park but not in my yard. The ACE 250 barely found them and ID'd them below the silver copper range. The signal response was broken and chattered. The ACE with the 9x12 coil is not able to be used in my yard due to the RF. However it did find the coins with the 9x12 coil but barely and with a lot of chatter. The Sovereign suffered the same fate with the RF and was unusable as well.
All of these detectors worked in the local parks to some extent but still had issues with RF in certain areas close to power lines and traffic signal boxes. So far the Musky has confirmed my gut feeling and has outperformed the others under the adverse environment of my neighborhood and local parks. The Musky has shined above the others when it comes to RF interference. Even with extreme RF the Musky will continue to hunt with slight background chatter but this nulls out when over a good target and good targets give a solid repeatable response. The amazing depth of the smaller coil and very fast recovery speed of the detector have convinced me that I will definately keep this Musky forever. IMHO it is a very very good detector and possibly way underrated. Too bad they quit making this detector when they should have improved it instead. I have found that the Musky will ignore screw caps and all but very large iron objects when the disc is set to almost max. On a Minelab such as the Musky or Sovereign, this will not however tune out coins except for nickels. They will also not loose any depth with max disc as some of the others will. All in all a top notch simple to use detector.
I lost a few dollars in this process as well. These included the Tesoro Vaquero, Garrett ACE 250, Minelab X-Terra 305 and Minelab Sovereign XS-2. My favorite of these was the Sovereign XS-2. Unfortunately, this did not work well in my neighborhood do to RF interference, power lines, etc. Just last week Monday I found on eBay a new condition Musketeer Advantage Pro Pack with TS 800 and 1000 coils, rechargeable battery pack, AA battery pack, hip mount bag, factory warranty, etc. so I jumped on the opportunity. The musky arrived last Wednesday after only two days. I quickly converted this to a straight shaft mod as I dislike the standard S shaft. It is now Sunday and I have tested the Musky in my troublesome yard and at several park and school locations. I have to say at this point that I am thoroughly pleased with this detector and it has exceeded my expectations. The amazing thing is that carefully ground balancing the detector in all metal has also resulted in tuning out most of the RF interference for some reason. The worst place in my yard for RF interference is where I have freshly buried a quarter and dime at 8 inches. These have only been in the ground for 3 months now. With the smaller TS 800 coil (7 inch dia.), this detector responds to these coins with a very sweet mellow tone that repeats from every direction and with every pass of the coil. This was with disc set to max and 75% power. This is impressive as none of the other detectors I have tried this year have come close to this. The Tesoro Vaquero would not find them at all. I could not tune this detector to eliminate the RF interference. It worked great at a local park but not in my yard. The ACE 250 barely found them and ID'd them below the silver copper range. The signal response was broken and chattered. The ACE with the 9x12 coil is not able to be used in my yard due to the RF. However it did find the coins with the 9x12 coil but barely and with a lot of chatter. The Sovereign suffered the same fate with the RF and was unusable as well.
All of these detectors worked in the local parks to some extent but still had issues with RF in certain areas close to power lines and traffic signal boxes. So far the Musky has confirmed my gut feeling and has outperformed the others under the adverse environment of my neighborhood and local parks. The Musky has shined above the others when it comes to RF interference. Even with extreme RF the Musky will continue to hunt with slight background chatter but this nulls out when over a good target and good targets give a solid repeatable response. The amazing depth of the smaller coil and very fast recovery speed of the detector have convinced me that I will definately keep this Musky forever. IMHO it is a very very good detector and possibly way underrated. Too bad they quit making this detector when they should have improved it instead. I have found that the Musky will ignore screw caps and all but very large iron objects when the disc is set to almost max. On a Minelab such as the Musky or Sovereign, this will not however tune out coins except for nickels. They will also not loose any depth with max disc as some of the others will. All in all a top notch simple to use detector.
