This matches my experience so far with the 6” coil, but admittedly, I’ve only used mine twice. The first time was at a relatively iron free site in the woods, and I really liked the ability to maneuver around roots, small trees, and underbrush with ease. I made some nice finds and I was satisfied with the performance, but again, the site wasn’t very challenging from a trash/iron standpoint.
Today I strapped the 6” on again to try it at the site of a former mid-1800s house that I’ve hunted many times using the stock coil. Iron is a huge issue on most of the site - engage the horseshoe button, and to say the iron grunts sound off like a machine gun is an understatement...it sounds more like a mini gun!
I figured the 6” might help me squeak some extra goodies out of the site, but I ended up outright fooled by more rusty square nails than I can remember since starting in the hobby - one I would have swore was going to be a quarter. Ended up with 10 to a dozen rusty nails of various sizes and degrees of bentness - I was genuinely fooled on at least a half dozen, while the rest were admittedly iffy but sounded good enough to go after the signal. From that point, I just started skipping the iffy ones. On the upside, I did end up digging a very cool, big ol’ rusty iron key that I probably skipped with the stock coil, but sounded pretty good with the 6”....so I guess it isn’t all bad
Anyways, I plan to continue using mine in tight quarters when appropriate - woods, corn stubble farm fields, etc - I like idea of the smaller size in those situations. I’ll also still use it as a “follow-up” coil at some of my standing permissions to get some extra separation if the conditions seem to warrant it - I still believe the 6” coil must separate better than the 11” stock. I’ll just have to be prepared to dig more nails...and/or crank the iron bias up a bit more??