Gold N Nel

[ddmk6]

I wanted some coil options so I ordered a Nel Tornado coil for the AT Gold. I know everyone likes smaller coils, and the 5 x 8 is a great coil for most of the stuff I do. I wanted something to cover some ground, I can always go back with the 5 x 8 if needed. The Nel coil arrived today and I still had a little daylight left for a brief hour and a half test run. I took it down to a school yard that has a little history to it. The original school building is no longer there but it was there in the early 1900's. I have found silver there before, it didn't give any up today though. Oldest quarter was 1965...

I don't have a test garden to compare between the 5 x 8 and this new Tornado, so I can't get too scientific First impression....I like it. It is definitely more prone to EMI as one would expect with the bigger coil, so far nothing that wasn't manageable, had to take the sensitivity down 3 notches from max in one area. As I moved away from there ( maybe 40 yards) I could notch it back up. Ran most of the hunt at full sensitivity.

For this hunt I ran in disc 1 with iron disc at 35. I started out in All Metal mode but it was just too many targets that I didn't feel like dealing with at the moment. I ran in disc 2 for a little bit just to see. I really don't care for disc 2 no matter what coil I'm running. Too many chopped up signals for me. Just seems to clutter everything up in my opinion.

As far as depth...The main difference I noticed from the 5 x 8 is that most of the coins found, I had to do the super tune trick on the Pro Pointer. Usually with the 5 x 8 stock coil I can find the majority of the coins etc., without having to tune the Pro Pointer. Almost all of the stuff I found this evening was deeper than the Pro Pointer would find without tuning. I'm terrible about keeping track of how deep (measuring) stuff is. I just get it out of the ground and move on. Most of the finds tonight were not in the plug (4 to 5" deep), I had to pull more dirt out of the bottom of the hole. I know one dime was at least 8 or 9". Had one signal that surprised me, it was fairly deep and kept hitting 91 on the VDI. Turned out to be a quarter and a dime together in the hole Thought I had a good one.

Pin pointing is really effortless and spot on with this bigger coil. Took about 10 minutes to figure it out. Pinpoint normally, then when over the target, let off and hit the pinpoint again to detune. When you find the strongest signal again the target will be right under the coil bolt. You can literally dig a 3" plug at the most. With the stock 5 x 8" I was always off a little. I got in the habit of using the Pro Pointer after pin pointing with the detector just to make sure I was over the target. With the Nel coil, I got to the point that I no longer had to do this.

I haven't had a chance to do any checks on recovery speed or target separation yet. I was in too much of a hurry to get out and play before it got dark. I'm sure it will probably be as expected for a larger coil. I didn't buy it to hunt trash piles with though, I have the 5 x 8 for that.

I will update when I get a chance to spend some more time with this coil.

Kenny

 

[William-NM]

Thanks for the review, Kenny. How big is the Tornado? DD? Sounds like a good choice for beach and field hunting.

 

[ddmk6]

Morning William,

The Tornado is a 12' x 13" DD coil.

It's obviously a little heavier than the 5" x 8" but doesn't seem that bad to me. They have specific coils for the AT gold and AT Pro, they are not interchangeable so make sure you are looking at the correct coil for your machine.

I reposted the pic I tried to add in the first post down below. Not sure what happened there. Also not sure how to edit a post to correct it...This was about 1 and 1/2 hours worth of hunting last evening.

 

[fongu]

Nice coil and nice finds. You can cover a lot of ground with that coil.

 

[ddmk6]

Thanks fongu. It's definitely not as nimble as the 5" x 8" but it will cover some ground for sure. I have a couple fields I want to cover with this for sure. There were 1800 stage stops somewhere in those huge areas. No signs of them now, just need to get out there and swing until they are found

I spent another couple hours at the school trying to find some deep silver. It's going to be a job just getting rid of the clad just to see if I can hear deeper targets. This ground is like quicksand though, I'm hitting clad from the 90's 6" to 8" deep.

Here is the clad from round two with the Nel coil. Scored a dollar, 1/2 dollar and an 8" deep butter knife

Kenny

 

[mudpuppy]

Thats a great looking coil for beach and clear water hunting...like William said...a fellow can go for miles on sand or in the water between targets in my area at least...whats that thing retail for..AtPro...?
Mud

 

[ddmk6]

Hi Mud,

I paid about $170.00 for this one. They actually make two coils even bigger than the Tornado if you really want to go crazy... The thing that made me feel a little better about buying it is there are a couple US dealers selling them now. If something were to go wrong the coils don't have to be shipped overseas for warranty. I wouldn't have bought it if that were the case.

I still don't have any rock solid measurements for depth differences between the 5 x 8 and the Tornado. There is a video on the tube about it. Kind of what prompted me to give it a whirl. I don't think I'm seeing the same differences he shows in the video, but he is in clean ground, I'm not. The ad claims 30% increase, I think that may be realistic but can't give you solid numbers. So far the VDI numbers seem spot on as compared to the 5 x 8, which I have read is an indicator of coil compatibility. I really need to get that test garden set up

Kenny