Hello, Ian, Brian and Ashlie

Well I finally did it. Broke down and bought a nice used MXT 300 with the super 12 and a 950. Hope you guys can tell me what I can expect with this setup relic hunting down at the coast in this nice sandy soil? I haven't even taken it out yet, it's just been too hot. I hope I can get good depth with this machine because the relics sink in this type of ground. Also do you think it would be benificial to get the 6x10 DD coil. The ground is mild but I'm thinking the DD might work better in old house sites with the iron trash. Really enjoy your videos, keep them coming.

Regards, Your friend Jerry in Jasper County S.C.

Hey Jerry,
If I remember correctly, that nice sandy, loose soil isn't too hot. If the conditions are favorable, I would use a large, concentric coil. But, like you mentioned, the DD coil might be the perfect tool for trashy areas.

I would recommend running relic mode, discriminator at zero, and your sensitivity as high as possible before it starts giving false signals. If you run into an area with a lot of iron, using these settings, just flip the trigger forward and it will grunt at the iron and beep at the positives.

Of course, the best way to learn your machine is to get out and play with it and I know you'll be doing just that once the cooler weather sets in!

Best of luck and I can't wait to see the relics you pull from SC!!

-Ian

Ian wrote:

Hey Jerry,
If I remember correctly, that nice sandy, loose soil isn't too hot. If the conditions are favorable, I would use a large, concentric coil. But, like you mentioned, the DD coil might be the perfect tool for trashy areas.

I would recommend running relic mode, discriminator at zero, and your sensitivity as high as possible before it starts giving false signals. If you run into an area with a lot of iron, using these settings, just flip the trigger forward and it will grunt at the iron and beep at the positives.

Of course, the best way to learn your machine is to get out and play with it and I know you'll be doing just that once the cooler weather sets in!

Best of luck and I can't wait to see the relics you pull from SC!!

-Ian

Jerry welcome to the forum!

Take Ian's advice he knows this machine in and out. We both use MXT's most of the time and love them. Best advice is to get out and use it. The more you use it the better you will learn how it reacts to the different targets you dig. Do your research on sites and I'm sure you'll be recovering some quality relics in no time flat. Congrats on a great purchase.

Ian, you and Brian are saying best to run with 0 discrimination in relic mode both in primary search and secondary mode also (trigger foward)? In playing around air testing I went no higher than 2 on the disc, just enough to eliminate nails.

Jerry SC wrote:

Ian, you and Brian are saying best to run with 0 discrimination in relic mode both in primary search and secondary mode also (trigger foward)? In playing around air testing I went no higher than 2 on the disc, just enough to eliminate nails.

We like to run our MXT's full throttle so to speak. On certain ground conditions, running it with 0 discrimination will yield a little more depth. We have also noticed that the MXT will sometimes show Iron on deep lead and brass. Recently, on Brian's spur that he recovered, if you ran the coil over it one direction it read iron, due to the rowel. The other direction read brass.

I find that if I do get into somewhat a trashy iron area, I will keep my discrimination at 0 and just flip the trigger forward. And I slow down, tremendously so that when I sweep, I can hear the beeps masked in the grunts of iron.

And remember, you can't always depend on the display. Sometimes, you may just hear a bump in the threshold. That usually means one of two things: A small piece of metal near the surface, or something nice and deep!

Hope this helps you out a little. Now get out and start digging!

-Ian

Thanks Ian and Brian,

Good tips, appreciate the help. I'm new to the MXT having used Nautilus and Tesoro for many years. I remember reading somewhere that a deep mini- ball sometimes shows up as a hotrock. You are right though, Audio is first, meter indications are secondary Information.
Jerry