The "Prospecting" Forum

I some time use the mxt for nugget shooting, has anyone tried some of the after market coils for the mxt, specifically the pricey large coils. How do they handle high mineral ground and pinpoint ? Is the depth any better than a ML in medium soil ?

If you are able to use small or medium coils on your mxt for hunting nuggets you should be able to use any of the larger ones that are made for it
also. In fact you should use a larger than normal coil to find new patches to cover more ground in a shorter lenght of time. If and when you do find
a patch work it over with every size and type ( mono or dd ) that you can get your hands on. Most mono coils will handle the ground found in the
U.S. but you might want to get a nice size dd just to be on the safe side ( 14" or smaller would be a good size ). Pin-point with the larger coils can
be a pain in the a## but if you work at it a little you will learn how. With the large mono coils you learn to turn it up on edge and X across the
target. Some like to use the tip of the coil or the toe ( works good if using an elip. coil ). Any large coil for any machine see's more ground minerals
than a small coil, but most of the time you can adjust the sen. to handle it. Some of coils for the big MineLabs can be used on your machine I THINK
but am not 100% sure. Go to AZoutbacks web page and find out for sure.

So if I use a larger coil (18x15" SEF (Butterfly) in high mineral soil and have to lower the gain to run stable, does this make any real depth difference from using a small dd coil set at a higher gain ?

Yes, No, and Maybe ( simple answer! )
You should be all right running the big SEF, the only time you may have a problem with any large
coil is if you are into a patch of VERY hot ground then you may want to switch to a smaller one
to smooth out the chatter but I can't see that would be a big issue as I would change to a smaller coil
anyway and take what I could with it and then put on the next larger one I had and repeat. When I
say go to a smaller coil from a large coil I am talking like 20" down to 16" or 14" then down to 12 to 10.
You see what I mean? But even this may not fit your situation; I would be more in favor of a 10x5 or 8"
to go along with the 18x15 or 15x12, even a 5" sniper may be what is needed in that spot. That's why I say
work any patch over with any coil you can get your hands on.

Thanks for the info I'll try it out