Garys Detecting.co.uk
Metal detector field tests and comparisons latest reviews c scope, minelab sovereign, musketeer, XP elliptical coil metal detector field tests and reviews
The Laser Trident V's The Minelab X-Terra
Both machines fall in a simlar price range the Trident II  retails £30 cheaper.
They have the same amount of user adjustments with the exception of the X-Terra's large LCD meter which can be an advantage when coinshooting.

The controls are very simple, the Minelab has push pads and the Trident has rotary controls.


Coinshooting in the public park tested by Dan
Both machines were given to Daniel my 8 year old, having been set up by me to reject all ring pulls and foil, the X-Terra needed a shorter stem to be fitted as the original one was far to large even in the smallest position.
At this moment I can hear Mr smart arse saying,"why give the machine to an 8 year old to test".
In answer Mr smart asses question, here in the UK we have strict laws about detecting on public land, a youngster using a metal detector supervised by an adult who digs for him will not arouse to much attention, where as an adult on his own will almost certainly be asked to leave or be threatened with prosecution.
Secondly those who have detected with Daniel have all commented on his professional approach and ability to keep up with the best.

First off was the X-Terra
The time flew by Dan had found 12 coins ranging between Georgian and modern and some bottle caps / coke cans. Time detecting just under 2 hours.
The X-Terra worked well no Iron was detected pin pointing was very good.
Second away the Laser Trident
We instantly noticed a difference in depth old pennies came from depths of around 10" and decimal 1/2p's started to appear, the light faded very fast, we only had an hours detecting but still managed to pluck out 28 coins and some bottle caps. The Trident was quick and efficient probably because we were not looking at a meter and trying to anylise things
The winner hands down the Laser Trident 2

Test 2 Contaminated Roman site tested by me
Our usual site finds are getting a little thin on the ground now, we decided to give both machines another hours search each again.
 The X-Terra went first, it was set up to run in all metal with tone ID, sensitivity 18.
The first signal was very faint high pitched reading 45 on the meter we dug down to find a tiny thin nail at 6", checking the hole again it was confirmed that the nail was giving the positive signal.
We had another identical situation good weak signal 45 and another nail. There were 2 0ther positive signals which tuirned out to be a shotgun cartridge and a piece of lead.
4 Signals in one hour the X-Terra 50 did not cope with the mineralised soil well, also my arm ache'd swinging through the well rotted down stubble because the stem was to long.

Laser Trident 2 was set to reject a large nail with the sensitivity at 10 ground balanced in fixed.
Plenty of blips and chips which is to be expected on this site but a good signal was sharp and clean total 11 signals 3 small Roman bronzes 4 pieces of lead, 2 shotgun cases, 1 nail and 1 large square piece of Iron.
The winner hands down the Laser Trident 2

At home the tub test
Readers of my site will now be aware of the tub, it is a tub of badly mineralised soil only 3 inches deep, a coin is placed under the tub and it is hopefully located when swinging the coil over it. (see Cibola field test)
3 Coins were used
A hammered penny
A small roman Bronze
A modern 10p

C Scope 1220 XDP field test

The C Scope 1220 XDP is the latest in the 1220 range which has been a favourite amongst detectorists for many years, Some excellent finds have been made with the 1220’s,it is packed with unique features for example 2 discrimination modes.GD1 allows a fine discrimination band which covers from nails at a minimum setting up to small foil at maximum.GD2 rejects from small foil at minimum up to bottle caps at maximum.
Both modes also have the clear meter id to give a visual reading of ferrous and non ferrous giving the operator as much target information as possible. Then there is the meter disc mode which searches in all metal giving a tone on every signal the meter swings left or right depending on the target composition.

The last mode is Meter Audio Disc which is like the all metal mode but assigns a different tone for every target. E.G. iron will give a low tone a copper coin will give a high tone.

I  found this machine a little confusing at first, but after a while I could appreciate why it has such  devoted followers. The discrimination works very well against Iron, deep targets sound deep so good hearing and better headphones are a must. The depth of this machine was on par with most other machines in my type of soil. To obtain the maximum performance out of the 1220 in the field it is imperative you work slowly  and listen for the quiet ghost signals in your headphones, when the machine scans over Iron in GD1 or GD2 the threshold will null, large iron will sometimes give a positive signal but with practice you can hear the threshold dip just before and after the signal.
Comments
I really enjoyed using the 1220 XDP, I think it will work well on many different sites.

Likes

Build quality is the best I have seen in a detector,Iron Discrimination excellent,4 search modes,battery compartment under arm,Value for money

Dislikes

2 piece stem, instruction manual is a little hard to follow at first

takes time to learn and unlock the full potential of this machine.

Marks
  Build quality 9/10, performance 7/10, Iron rejection 9/10
Average 8/10

Minelab Sovereign field test

Setting up the Minelab Sovereign in the field is very easy, the volume must be turned up full to gain maximum performance, the sensitivity has an auto or manual setting, we found using it in manual allowed a slightly faster sweep speed. This machine has an adjustable tone setting which will give a range of approx 17 different tones for targets varying in conductivity, but you only hear a fraction of them as they are so close together on the scale. Iron will null or give a low audio blat,where foil or small hammered will give a smooth low tone, copper coins sing out with a high tone, these tones are  adjustable from inside the control box. If you wish to search with a single tone this is also an adjustable function, on the later models there is a switch mounted on the control panel.

SET UP

Adjust the threshold so you can hear a faint hum, set the sensitivity so you get only the occasional nulling on iron, set the discrimination and notch to zero and that's it you're searching with a very deep sensitive machine. With the Sovereign you will need to swing slowly to obtain maximum performance. The signals are much clearer than the Explorer and so is the pin pointing, we have compared Sovereign against Explorer for depth and the Sovereign won every time with a clear signal where as the Explorer gave confused blip. The meter on the Sovereign is just a little fun and extra weight it is not required when relic hunting the sounds gave enough information. On large Iron the machine gave a signal but  listening carefully the threshold blanked before and after the tone. A non ferrous target gave a smooth signal every time, and another good point to make is that deep signals sounded deep with a quiet whisper.

The 10 inch coil was rather heavy but performed well, I have found the best all round coil for this machine is the original white solid coil called the coinsearch.another tip is to mount the control box to an XLT stem, this balances the machine perfectly.

A perfect machine for searching beaches deep pasture

 Build quality 8/10, performance8/10  Iron rejection 9/10 
Like it  8.5/10

Likes

 Second hand Sovereigns are great value for money

Very robust construction

The deepest machine I have used

Lovely audio tones

Fit a WOT 15 inch coil and use as a hoard hunter

Dislikes

Standard machine is a little heavy

New price is a little high compared to S/H value

Meter confusing and heavy

Threshold nulls a lot when searching a badly iron contaminated site

Poor performance in dry fluffy soil

Battery drain very sudden(take spare when searching)

Minelab Musketeer Advantage

Minelab Advantage
 Andy (Bristol)
Well what can I say, this has got to be one of the best detectors I've ever used, it will out perform many top of the range detectors costing twice as much. I will run through how I set it up and use this machine. The first thing to do once out in the field is to set the ground balance if you are not going to use the fixed mode, this is a very simple job. First you should turn the detector on and turn the sensitivity fully clockwise until you get some chatter and then turn it back a little until the chatter stops, now flick the top toggle switch to the ground adjust enable position and the bottom toggle to the all metal position, now start to raise and lower the coil 6" from the ground, keep doing this while turning the ground adjust knob in a clockwise direction until the threshold sound stays the same and doesn't get quieter or louder as the coil is lowered to the ground ( you can have a very slight rise in the sound as you lower the coil ), once you have set the detector to the ground you then flick the toggle switch to discriminate and you are ready to start detecting, its as easy as that. I've been using my Advantage now for the last 8 months with the new slimline 10" coil and have had some great finds at some very good depths, I've had roman coins out of the ground at 3 - 6 inches and bigger coins out at up to 11 inches, this is in ground depths and is very impressive for a detector at this price. I set the disc at between 2 and 3, I have never been any higher and this is always enough, you will occasionally get a spitting over deep iron but after a while you will be able to tell its iron by its wide signal, coins and small artefacts give a nice sharp signal, easily recognisable after a while. If you detect on roman sites you will have to turn the sensitivity down a bit, set it to the 1 - 2 o'clock position, this will stop a lot of chatter caused by the high mineral content found in the soil on these types of site, by reducing the sensitivity will also get you more depth, I know this sounds strange but I've tested it and it works. If you use the Advantage on normal types of soil where fields have been set aside for instants you will be impressed by the depths you can reach. Some people moan because they think the Advantage is heavy but there is an easy solution to this, you can either belt mount the control box or you can move the fixing bracket and chop the legs and a bit of plastic of the arm cup, this makes it very well balanced and you can use the detector all day without your elbow playing up.
 ( see conversion on the "your shout" page )
Andy (Bristol)

Thanks for your test Andy nice to know someone is out there Gary

Minelab Advantage
Gary UK
I can remember travelling down to Detecnicks on a Sunday to purchase my original Musketeer when it was first launched some years ago, its claim to fame was the excellent Iron discrimination and the depth that could be achieved, even with the stock 7.5" coil. Having only taken a nearly new Advantage Pro in P/X it would be foolish not to test it.
I was really itching to try the 10" 2D coil which is the extra coil supplied as part of the Pro kit.
I have a small pasture field near my house where I do a lot of my testing, finds still pop up but things are now generally quiet as the remaining targets are very deep and possibly out of range.
As I was using the large coil I hip mounted the control box in its weatherproof pouch, this machine is really easy to set up, switch the Ground balance to "fixed", put the lower toggle in "discriminate", upper toggle in "pin point", Discrimination level adjust on "zero", turn the sensitivity full up and then slightly reduce it to stop the machine from chattering.

To start off I investigated a couple of signals which had a slightly broken audio sound, these turned out to be Iron as suspected, the next signal was a smooth 2 way beep with no signs of interruption ,it was a pound coin just under the surface, probably dropped by myself on a previous test, then another clean signal which turned out to be foil hmm hope that wasn't me to. A short while later I got a double bleep it was very hard to pin point, I dug the target to find it was a large Iron spike, I decided to turn the discrimination up so I could no longer hear the Iron, the rejection point was 11 o'clock,then I tried the foil, it was still a good signal, I turned the discrimination further,  it rejected the foil at around 2 oclock.This had now proved to me that the Advantage had a rejection range from Iron to ring pulls at the higher end, a copper coin could not be rejected, not like some other machines.
This indeed was a very good feature for us relic hunters in the UK. I continued my search with it set on zero, knowing the Iron would give a double bleep. The deep signals sounded deep, giving a faint whisper, this is how I remembered the old Musketeer, by listening to the faint signals you could pluck some really nice finds out of very quiet sites. I had around 6 deep targets on the test all good signals, the deepest target I dug was a crotal bell at approx 10 inches it gave a lovely smooth 2 way tone.
Summing up the Musketeer Advantage

Good points
Very deep
Iron rejection excellent a broken target was always trash
You can run the Discrimination at 11 O'clock without losing good targets
Pin pointing was no problem
First class build quality
Favourite headphones are Ross 534/2598  £5.99 from Argos they sounded great
New style battery very good
Easy to use, I would estimate the learning curve to be 1 hour Max

Bad points
A little heavy when control box is stem mounted with 10" coil
Battery charger hums when charging

Tesoro Eurosabre

By Goosepool

       Won't go Into the name''Euro Sabre''I don't care If the machine Is called ''Asian Fudge Finder'' or ''African dung Digger''?Or It Is Orange,Purple or sky blue pink,Mmmmm.Or that the disc knob has 5c-tabs,nickles rather than blobs, dollops,better blobs,lead blobs & hammys??
       The Euro Micromax Sabre Is as good on small targets as my old B1 laser & SabreII(If you get the settings right).The ''Iron Id Mode''I found still works with the settings higher than''Iron''.Running It as the manual states on minimum discrim will drive you nuts!! Continuous ''blurb-blee-blurb''If a target gives the higher tone more that just a low tone then DIG!.The Euro will tell you a good target even around Iron junk at a low disc setting AND you'll here It. All the non ferrous will give a high tone If disc Is set above ''Foil'' except for anything with Iron mixed eg,,horse buckle with Iron pin attached will give ''high-low'' mixed tone...nice.Also It will give a middle tone or long broad tone on hot rocks-coke..perfect.It's a snip to ground balance,mine has the pentechnic mod that has a 3/4 turn balance fitted with a ''fixed ground balance''setting.I this was set a little to positive for my sites. Found out that the + sign on It would make It go more In the ''negative'' NOT ''positive'' balance,,duh.So after finding this out,3-4 pumps, slight movement on the control knob and ta-dah balanced,,easy. Light Very light,1X9v last so manual states... 16-20hrs,I found better to change after 10-12hrs.''Iron Blank''mode makes the machine work just like my old Sabre II..click spit on Iron,beep-b-beep on the goodies:)Pinpoint vco..well never really need It,just cross sweeps and the target Is there.
 Good Points
  Very Light,
  Silent running.
  Easy to set up.
  Cheap to run.
  Pentechnic Sevice..Excellent!!
  Excellent on bad junky ground!
  Not so Good Points
  Tesoro three stem creek
  US got a 10X12 coil,we had the 9X8?

The Tesoro Euro Sabre control panel

Some Tesoro Euro Sabre finds in 5 hours

A lovely intaglio found during the field test

Cheers for that fella appreciate your contribution to my site...Gaz

The C Scope 1220R Field test
May 20th 2004
The all new computerised 1220




The machine was very easy to assemble, just simply slide the two stems together,re-chargeable batterys and coil cover are not supplied.


Setting up the C Scope 1220 R
    As usual the machine was built to C scopes high standards, existing 1220 owners will have no problems mastering this machine as it has most features carried over from the 1220xd.For me it was a trip down memory lane, I had forgotten how to operate this machine, the manual was no real help. I was eager to get out so I quickly ran through the settings, it soon jogged the old brain cell into life.
SET UP
The machine is switched on by simply pressing the right hand rotary switch. The machine will boot into life, turn the mode switch into "set up" this will allow you to adjust volume, threshold and sensitivity to your site conditions. Then switch to the search mode you require...choices are:
G/D This is a discrimination mode with the ability to switch into all metal by simply pressing the G or D buttons
Meter mode This is all metal and meter identification.
Meter+Audio mode This will allow you to search in all metal, Iron will give a low tone, good targets will give a high tone, this is known as a sooty and sweep mode.
The 1220 also has a manual ground balance.
In the field
The first thing I noticed in the field was the screen, even in bright sunlight it was eay to read with a clear bold display.
Sorry the C Scope 1220R field test is still under construction.
Check back soon !!!!!

C Scope 1220R

Readers Report 23/7/04

Hi Garry,you claim to be unbiast with your field tests and I can see why you didn't continue with your 1220R test. I have just purchased one and think its rubbish. You also claim to let readers have their own shout so I would appreciate if you let me have mine.
Awaiting your response Alan.


Gary's reply
Thanks Alan for your letter, I must point out that the reason my test was not finished was because I have been working overseas and decided to give someone else a chance to review it fully.
 And a final note I have removed the slanderous remarks as I feel it is unnecessary.
Gary

 A Reply to Alan's comments
Dear Gary

Recently I visited your site for the first time in awhile and saw  Alan‘s comments regarding the C-Scope 1220R. You may recall, I was the buyer of your 1220R.  Here are my views and experiences after using it exclusively for the past five weeks.

Initial impressions on opening the box were that is was a well built machine that looked the business.  It is lightweight compared to the Minelab Explorer I normally use.  My first outing with the 1220 was to a rough pasture field on a blazing hot Sunday.  After an hour of total frustration, I gave up and went home.  This machine is impossible to tune on a hot sunny day, and the Grey Ghost NDT headphones are not suited to it. 

Five days later I was ready to go out again, as I can not believe that the machine can be that bad. – C-Scope must be confident looking at how they are pushing it in their ads.  Once again it was pasture, but this time it is raining and 10C cooler.  I took shelter under the big oak tree until a particularly heavy shower passed over. And make a brilliant find as I am idly swinging the search head -  a heavy gold mourning ring., about 4” deep.  Any detector should have found it, but none had.  I have detected under that tree countless times with countless detectors.
So, one up to the 1220.  In these conditions it was brilliant.  That day I also found a Tudor bronze pot handle and a 1935 sixpence.  I had no problems with stability and a pair of cheap headphones really helped the audio.  The machine seemed to have good discrimination as long as the target was not too deep. Most iron is easy to recognize as the audio always dips and the meter always goes left : even big iron does this initially before going positive.

The next 2 outings were hopeless, as the sun was shining.  I really must get in touch with C-Scope over this sunshine issue.(turn the sun down C Scope)  This machine seems more effected than the original 1220 I had in the late 1980s
I note Alan’s comments and must admit I’d not been impressed with its depth capabilities, but it is fairly sensitive to small targets and that is what I’d been telling anyone who asked  That’s the problem with making judgements after such a short time.  Because you have not found anything deep is most likely because the search head has not passed over anything deep.  I went out on Wednesday evening to pasture land again and found an extremely worn William 4 sixpence at confidence boosting 8”   This measurement is accurate as my digger has graduations on the blade.  The signal was flat, didn’t rise or fall and the meter went 1 notch negative.  Not the world’s deepest seeking detector, but an awful lot better than I had believed it to be.

In summary, I like the balance and weight.  It has good iron discrimination.  It is sensitive to small targets.  The audio is excellent when you get used to it, but make sure you have good headphones.  – the Grey Ghost NDT were too quiet and blended all the tones together. I do not like this detector on hot sunny days as it is impossible to tune.  The most important advice for anyone using this detector is to work slowly. For the record, my settings are Tune 44, Sensitivity 10, Volume 10 and Ground 52.

Regards  Barry Day

Thanks for your comments Barry,excellent report....Gary

XP Eliptical coil field test
I was introduced to the xp golmax several months ago by Gary of Garys detecting supplies fame as a replacement for my beloved tesoro lobo super track ,a machine with wich I have made thousands of finds with over recent years . After an initial few minuites with the new machine I was hooked, definitely a step up the ladder -the perfect machine for searching contaminated ancient sites as I was soon to find out. There are two different accessory coils available for this machine, a larger 11 inch wide scan and a small elliptical “joey” coil , this test concernes the elliptical coil as I wanted to see how it would cope under the worst conditions I could find and compare it with the standard 9inch coil.The first site was a walled
kitchen garden attached to a large house of  Norman origins this now pesents as a large flat lawned area but was untill recently a mud bath littered with building materials and rubbish and a few tantilizing sherds of ancient pottery . This had been searced when in a “raw” state but had been abandoned as being too contaminated. After setting the the ground balance to just accept a small piece of ferrite which I have found to be the most accurate method of setting up most machines  I lowered the sensitivity to about
9 o'clock expecting the worst and began searching. Almost immediately nice crisp high tones began to
appear from amongst the low toned  ferrous signals that almost totally blanketed the ground .These
were mostly from small scraps of lead some of which could be identified as glazing strips from windows and the inevitable 22 air rifle pellets , these tiny targets sounded bigger and punchier than expected most likely because they presented a proportionally larger area to the smaller coil. Three hours searching produced eighty six non-ferrous targets , whilst most were junk some reasonable finds were also made these are shown in fig 1 , these included 2 small hammered silver coins 6 roman coins 1 of which is
very , very small and most unexpectedly a small portion of  bronze age axe head , pushing the known history of the site back by two thosand years.  It was time to move on to a small Roman site that covered an area no bigger than most suburban back gardens, step over an imaginary line on the ground and the finds rapidly dried up, because of its compact nature I had made a very thorough  search here over the
last few months with the standard head to the point where nothing else could be found , ideal conditions for seeing if the smaller coil could find anything previously missed.Although not as contaminated as the previous site I would still rate the conditions as being bad. Finds were not as forthcoming as before , but patience paid of and the final tally for the day included the items shown in fig 2 , these included 5 Roman minims and the catch plate from a brooch, all these were close to the surface in one of the most iron infested patches and would represent a tough challenge for any machine. Several other outings were made to see if the coil was practical under more normal search conditions and although there was a slight drop
in depth as to be expected , the ground coverage was still ok and finds were made at reasonable depths in cleaner soil , some of these are shown in fig 3 and include a really nice bronze of Crispus Ceasar and a plated siliqua that may be a contemporary forgery. In conclusion the elliptical coil can be used to good effect on most sites but really excells on the very worst , it should be ideal on river foreshores where the ability to work in amongst heavy iron contamination should prove to be useful. 
       
Thanks for your report Ashley....Gaz

 

A 6 year old with a Laser Scout
My wife and daughter went shoping today and left me looking after my son Daniel the one boy crowd,my strict instructions was to take him to the barbers and have a boys day together,as we waved goodbye to the girls I asked Dan what he wanted to do, he said can we go detecting...right answer thats my boy.
As we drove past the barbers it looked far to busy at least that was our excuse.
As you can imagine a 6 year old has no real experience with detectors I just explained about keeping the search coil to the ground and swing it slowly,then call me over if it bleeps,and it did bleep on several occasions here is what the little B***** found.