Coil for Tesoro Outlaw

[TheManMetz]

Hello all. This is my first post on the forum. I have recently upgraded and bought my first Tesoro! Sadly its cold and snowy in PA right now so I have not gotten much opportunity to use the Outlaw yet except for air testing and whatnot. I bought the Outlaw with just the 8" coil... I was lucky enough to just talk my wife into letting me spend the money that I did. Ha! I am thinking about getting another coil in the future. I hunt some areas that are rather trashy (many nails and lots of can slaw/foil) and I am thinking about hunting for gold nuggets or jewelry in the small stream near my house. It is an interesting little stream with lots of cracks and valleys in the bedrock bottom. I am torn between the 4" concentric or 5.75" concentric. I had a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV with the standard 8" coil and small 4" coil. The 4" inch coil was great in the trash and forced me to slow down, but I didn't get to use it much since the ground froze shortly after I got the small coil. I since gave my BH to my father in law because he is interested in getting into the hobby. I guess where I am going is that I really liked the separation the 4" coil provided but its very small. Does the 5.75" coil really shine in the trash over the 8" coil? Or should I stick with the 4" size for my trashy areas and gold nugget/jewelry hunting.

 

[Walknstik]

Being that the 4" coil is a bit smaller than the 5.75" coil you will get a little bit better target separation but the 5.75" coil is hard to beat in my opinion. I know what you mean using the 4" as far as ground coverage per sweep but then again you don't want to hunt fast in trashy areas anyway. Really can't go wrong with either coil...good luck with your Outlaw and HH!

Randy

 

[tabman]

Welcome to the forum.

You're going to be pleasantly surprised at how well the 8 inch coil will separate good targets from thick trash.

The 5.75 inch concentric coil will handle just about any situation and it's not so small that you feel that you're swinging a hockey puck.

Some people put the 5.75 inch concentric coil on and never take it off.

tabman

 

[kaolinwasher]

if hunting for gold in the creek, which I assume will be full of black sand - I would use the 7" DD its going to hit deeper in Disc, and better in all metal the concentrics choke when the ground gets mineralized- but the 8" concentric is a super coil in average ground trust me you are not missing out on anything , the 8" concentric is a really great coil but I would get the 7" for the more mineralized ground , good combo for trash & minerals, I used both like in the gravel road the 8" concentric could not hear a 5" buried dime but the 7" DD hit good thats the difference. but when in the woods that was moderate mineralized the 8" did better

 

[Hombre]

Welcome to the forum, TheManMetz

I have the Outlaw with the three coil package, to tell you the truth, I use the 8" coil the most. The 8" coil has very good separation in the iron nails if they are not too thick, has good ground coverage and with the coil cover removed, is very well balanced. I already had the 4" and 5.75 concentric before I got the Outlaw and I already knew what they would do as far as performance and usefulness. The 4" coil is a specialty coil, it is great when you run into tough hunting conditions, like up against old house foundations where there are saplings growing close together and loose stones laying around. Then there are places with nails so thick that you might as well use a "sifter"after you find something good. I have an old abandoned house lined up to hunt this spring and it has all kinds of over grown brush and bramble and the 4" will be the coil of choice and I will be runing the Outlaw in auto tuned all-metal mode in the small openings around the old yard. In these tight and confined hunting spots you can not swing the coil in disc. mode. The 5.75 will be used more in the open areas as it has a little more depth and can swing the coil in disc. mode. HH

 

[mojotrout]

Howdy ManMetz, hope you can get out and play with the Outlaw soon. In my experience with the Outlaw, the 8 in. coil you have is best for most areas. Ive not had to deal with high mineralization though. I really didnt get much better separation with the 5.75. A little better, but not enough to make up for the depth loss. I also thought the 8 in. coil gave me clearer/cleaner target responses than either the 10x12 or 5.75 coil did, but that might have been my ears and my machine--results may vary.

Let us know how things go once you thaw out there in PA.

 

[TheManMetz]

Thanks for the replies. From what I am hearing I am leaning towards the 5.75 concentric. My ground is fairly mild as far as mineralization. I am very excited to get out when the ground thaws. My house dates back to around 1890 and I found one wheat and the rest modern clad with some copper pennies mixed in. No silver but I just felt like I was missing the old stuff with the BH. I am hoping the Outlaw will do the trick. Once my yard I tackled I got permission to hunt two churches and a school yard now private property that date back to the late 1800s. I am very excited to test the Outlaw.

 

[TheManMetz]

Update on my Tesoro Outlaw. Shortly after starting to use my Outlaw, the retune button started acting up. Emailed Tesoro and sent the machine in. They fixed it up no problem. It came back right about the time the ground truly thawed completely. So... My thoughts on the Outlaw so far.

Positives:
The disc. is excellent. I can tell easily if its a zinc vs a copper/dime. I tend to hunt some trashy parks and areas so there are times after about 30-45 mins of digging junk I turn the disc up to just past pull tab and cherry pick. Any other time I have been hunting just past foil.

Once I got on to the retune/pin point, it has been great! I can dig a very, very small plug for coin sized objects. Find the target hold the coil about 1/2 inch above the target, push retune in all the way for about 2 seconds. Then I rest the coil on the ground, push retune in half way and begin to slowly move left and right, forward and backward. I can usually put my finger right over top of the target and push a screwdriver in the ground and hit it if its a coin. Awesome feature.

The tone of the machine is great. I can tell when its a coin or something coin sized and can usually tell the junk from the poppy or chippy sounds. Nice sweet round tones indicate coin, rings, pull tabs, even bottle caps are slightly clipped vs a zinc penny.

Ground balancing has been easy.

Negatives/Neutrals:
I am not that impressed with the depth so far. I am not finding coins very deep or much deeper than I was finding with my Bounty Hunter Tracker IV. Maybe the coins in my areas are not all that deep but I have yet to dig a coin deeper than 4.5 to 5 inches. I am hunting some old areas too, dating back to the mid 1800s so there should be some deep coins. I am hoping that by using the machine more I will learn deeper sounding signals better.

When searching in disc. set to foil - thres set to 1 oclock, sens set to 9. I found a balled up pull tab at a solid 8 inches deep and was getting a good signal but no coins past 5 inches. Again maybe I am not getting my coil over deep coins but I am still curious.

I was fairly sure that the soil I hunt in is mild mineralization. The Outlaw confirmed that a lot of the places I hunt do not take much adjustment positive or negative in terms of ground balance. But I have not had a chance to hunt the creek yet since the weather is still cool. I am thinking the ground balance will come in handy in the creek.

So I like the disc and the pinpointing but I am still unsure about the depth in disc. My Bounty Hunter depth and only slightly less on coins so far in the ground vs. the Outlaw. The disc on the Outlaw is way better than the Bounty Hunter but the Bounty Hunter did a lot of the same things the Outlaw can do for 4 times less money in my style of hunting that I enjoy. So the truth comes out that I am having a bit of buyers remorse. I am wondering if in my ground and MOST of my hunting areas... would I have been just as well off with a Compadre or Silver uMax or even a Cibola? I passed on a Golden uMax because of no manual ground balance and I am wondering if I truly needed it. I really love the Tesoro disc and language so far when I am hunting but I am still trying to justify spending the extra cash I spent on the Outlaw right now. Anyone have any thoughts or insight?

 

[Hombre]

The ManMetz.......

I think it is just a matter of time that you will run into a deeper coin, most of the wheat pennies that I find are in the 4" to 6" range. A buddy of mine watched as I dug a penny at around 8" deep, he runs an XP Deus and was impressed that the Outlaw could get it. The signal on that 8" penny was faint and small and pinpointed really tight. With a signal like this, you had to be paying attention or you would have walked right over it. The Outlaw has a modulated audio and you have to listen carefully for the deep ones, good headphone are a must have. I usualy run the sensitivity into the orange boost range with the threshold just audible so I can use the all-metal mode. A lot of times when targets are few and far between,,,, I will hunt in auto-tune all-metal and flip the toggle to Disc. mode to check a target.

 

[tabman]

I very seldom use the pinpoint feature, because I'm so precise and fast at x-ing a target's location. Doing so allows me to turn the threshold to its highest setting. The higher threshold setting let's me hear the softer audio tones of the really deep targets. In my soil, around 8 inches on a dime is about it using the 8 inch coil. If need to go deeper, I pullout my special 10.5 inch doughnut coil.

tabman

 

[Hombre]

I very seldom use the pinpoint feature, because I'm so precise and fast at x-ing a target's location. Doing so allows me to turn the threshold to its highest setting. The higher threshold setting let's me hear the softer audio tones of the really deep targets. In my soil, around 8 inches on a dime is about it using the 8 inch coil. If need to go deeper, I pullout my special 10.5 inch doughnut coil.

tabman

I'm in agreement with you on most of your post, I can pinpoint just fine with the Outlaw or most any Tesoro using the coil wiggle in Disc. mode. I like to use the non motion pinpoint when I get that deep modulated audio signal in the motion Disc. mode with the threshold set to "just" audible. The non motion all-metal signal tells me more about the detected target than the signal in motion Disc. mode. For instance, if the signal in all-metal is really tight and small with a faint sound, it tells me it that I am over a very small target or a very deep target, it can also tell me the shape of the target to some extent. I like to use all the available modes that the detector offers, except that I do not supertune my Tesoros. I think that adjusting the threshold to the max makes them more prone to false on small iron, just my 2

 

[TheManMetz]

I have been doing alright with x-ing the target with the BH and the Outlaw but after going from cutting a 4.5 to 6 inch diameter plug to about a 3 inch plug with the pinpoint feature, I liked that! I think I am going to work on not using the pinpoint feature for a little while to allow for the threshold to be cranked up... it may allow me to hear the deeper signals a little better.