I did read his post. And while the button test may seem a little disappointing, I don't think it means much of anything. And the reason I say that is that I took my machine with the little coil to a place we call The Barber House today...it's been hunted by me and several other folks now for about 6 years...it's actually an empty lot about 2/3's the size of a football field that used to have 3 houses on it. They've been gone for years. What remains is a lot of rusty nails and some very tough hunting ground...roof tacks, nails, various other scrap and trash. But before the house were torn down we hunting the yards and got a BUNCH of silver...Barber dimes, quarters, Franklin half, Indians, Large Cents, buttons back to Colonial times, and much more. After the house were torn down it had to be hunted 100 times. By me and a half dozen others. Garrett, Whites, Minelab, Fisher, Nautilus, etc. Most folks have LONG since given up on it. Whenever I get a new machine or coil, I go there to test it. The SE found me an Indian and a Merc there in about 4 or 5 hours of hunting it, so that was SOMETHING. We'd all missed 'em before. TODAY, with the little coil, in 3 hours, I found more than I have found out there in the last 3 or 4 outings. There was iron in EVERY swing. But the little coil danced all around and in between it. Got killer depth too. First target out of the ground was a button from the 1830's that was about 8" deep under a root and surrounded by iron. Second was an old skeleton key. Next a wheatie...1912. Then a 1954 wheatie. Then a 1918 Buffalo nickel, a 1943 war nickel (silver) and a 1951 silver Rosie dime. Not bad for a place that's HUNTED OUT. Apparently not.
As for Ron's test, I also have a test bed in my backyard. With my Quattro in Auto it wouldn't hit most of the dozen targets I have there. With it at 20 it hit SOME. With it at 15 it hit them ALL. The Explorer is the same way...run it above 24 and most of the tragets go away. (It max's out at 32) The stock coil at sens 18 or 20 will hit all of them. Today I had the little 4.5 x 7 cranked to 30 in the backyard and it hit all but the silver dime at 10"...wouldn't get that. But it got a killer solid signal on the nickels I have at 7" and 10". That blew me away because the other machines don't. So there are many factors but I don't see Ron's button test as any cause for alarm. In the real world, it performed it's @$$ off.