I was wrong about the Manticore.

[north1]

I will preface this post by stating I started metal detecting in 1978 at the age of 10. A sears branded Whites Coinmaster was my Christmas present for working on the farm for the year. That opened up a new world to me and have had many good detectors over the years.
My last purchase was a Minelab Etrac in 2010 after going through Colon cancer treatments. It has been an unbelievable performer over the years and I truly felt it could not be topped. Just no way could I meld with another detector that would give me as much information tonally, visually(ferrous/conductive numbers+discrimination screen) as well as the customization it offered. I even intimated this on this forum.
Unbeknownst to me my wife saw me handling a Manticore at a box store and purchased it for me as an early Father’s Day gift. I kindly and with trepidation asked her if she could return it and let me order it through a dealer. Thankfully she agreed when I explained the importance of supporting businesses tailored to our great hobby.
I made a call to BART at Big Boys Hobbies and explained my type of MDing. Old farming homesteads loaded to the hilt with iron and that I was apprehensive the Manticore could stack up to my Etrac. He chuckled and politely explained the features and that I would be blown away by the advances it offered over the older tech I was using. With some apprehension and not completely believing him I placed the order adding the 9” searchcoil hoping it would live up to the 8”x6” SEF on my etrac. Bart assured me it would.
I just spent my first 1 1/2hrs with the Manticore in my yard that was homesteaded in the late 1800’s by my grandparents. I have detected this yard with every metal detector I have owned since 1978. Pounded it is an understatement. I have not pulled a coin from it since the first couple years with the Etrac running every program conceivable.
The first find with the Manticore was a copper rivet still connected to leather from a horse harness. Encouraging since nonferrous targets dried up years ago. Second target part of a copper broach with the stone missing. Again very encouraging. It was a solid signal mixed with iron grunts.
Then I was gobsmacked when I got a solid repeating signal in an area loaded with coke and iron that was a dump for the old coal stove. At 6” out popped an 1888 IHC. I pulled three pieces of iron out of the spoil pile before I located it. I was dumbfounded. I could not believe what in the hell was occurring. In areas of iron I then pulled out 1916D and 1919 wheat penny’s. I pulled iron out of the spoil pile with the 1916D and the 1919 was only a one way repeater amidst iron grunts at 10”.
I still can’t believe what I just experienced. My settings:
All Terrain General
Long Noise Cancel @-6
Ground Balance 0
Recovery Speed 3
Upper Ferrous Limit 8
Lower Ferrous Limit 4
Ferrous Volume 4
Ferrous Pitch 1
Stabilizer 4
Stabilizer Filter Off
1 Region All Tones
Audio Theme Normal
Threshold Level 10
Threshold Pitch 1
Profile Medium
Frequency MultiIQ
Ferrous Indication On

I hunted with stock All Terrain General disc pattern and when at least a solid one way tone was heard I pressed the horseshoe for all metal to check for a repeatable signal in the iron grunts and looking for a repeatable black TID number amidst the red iron indicated TID’s. The wiggle method worked great for pinpointing with the 9” coil. The detector ran amazingly stable. I synced with it immediately. I expected a LONG learning curve. First pic is coins. The second pic is coins with nonferrous items at top and ferrous trash to the right I pulled out of the holes with the coins. Sorry for the long winded post but I AM BLOWN AWAY!!!
A special shout out to Bart @Big Boys Hobbies and to all you on this board. Bart and all of you were right and I was wrong. I am happy about that. I now have many, many sites I had previously written off to revisit. I feel like that 10 year old boy strapping his metal detector to his bicycle for the first time.

 

[artman60]

It’s GOOD to feel much younger! Please keep us (or at least me) informed of your journey learning the Manticore.

 

[laplander]

The nine is a beast in the heavy iron. We have some of the same experiences, I started with the same machine in the early seventies a Conquistador coin master manufactured by Whites electronics, that was a beast to swing LOL I think the batteries alone weighed more than the Manticore does.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[jmaclen]

I was wrong about the Manticore too initially. I didn't believe that I had missed much of anything after using the Equinox 600 and 800, Nokta Legend and Deus 1/ORX along with a V3i, DFX, Etrac and many, many others. I just figured that Multi IQ+ was more of the same and since I didn't care much for the Equinox 900 after briefly owning one, I just wrote the Manticore off as BS hype. I was very, very wrong. Manticore and Deus 2 are absolutely fantastic detectors that can just about do anything, anywhere on just about any detectable sized target with depth down to 1 foot with good IDs even in the high mineralization where I live using their 11" coils on coin sized targets. Manticore is about an inch deeper than Deus 2 here and 2" deeper than my old Equinox 800 even running the Manticore at 75% sensitivity versus Deus 2 and the 800 at 95% sensitivity.

There is constant speculation from people that believe they are all set with the VLF detectors they already own and that VLF metal detectors are not really getting any better. Depending on ground conditions and preferred targets, that could be true. BBS/FBS and single frequency may get the job done for you especially if you don't need to do a lot of selective target hunting and beep dig on deep targets is good enough. However, these new SMF VLFs are the real deal. They aren't just the latest and greatest fluff. Depth + speed + target ID accuracy capability on all targets + ground handling + waterproof + great ergonomics + great audio options mean something more than gimmicks. For me anyway, they have made detecting a real pleasure instead of stressing about whether to dig or not or blindly believing I am so good with my detector that I can't possibly be missing anything......

I WAS.

 

[north1]

I will preface this post by stating I started metal detecting in 1978 at the age of 10. A sears branded Whites Coinmaster was my Christmas present for working on the farm for the year. That opened up a new world to me and have had many good detectors over the years.
My last purchase was a Minelab Etrac in 2010 after going through Colon cancer treatments. It has been an unbelievable performer over the years and I truly felt it could not be topped. Just no way could I meld with another detector that would give me as much information tonally, visually(ferrous/conductive numbers+discrimination screen) as well as the customization it offered. I even intimated this on this forum.
Unbeknownst to me my wife saw me handling a Manticore at a box store and purchased it for me as an early Father’s Day gift. I kindly and with trepidation asked her if she could return it and let me order it through a dealer. Thankfully she agreed when I explained the importance of supporting businesses tailored to our great hobby.
I made a call to BART at Big Boys Hobbies and explained my type of MDing. Old farming homesteads loaded to the hilt with iron and that I was apprehensive the Manticore could stack up to my Etrac. He chuckled and politely explained the features and that I would be blown away by the advances it offered over the older tech I was using. With some apprehension and not completely believing him I placed the order adding the 9” searchcoil hoping it would live up to the 8”x6” SEF on my etrac. Bart assured me it would.
I just spent my first 1 1/2hrs with the Manticore in my yard that was homesteaded in the late 1800’s by my grandparents. I have detected this yard with every metal detector I have owned since 1978. Pounded it is an understatement. I have not pulled a coin from it since the first couple years with the Etrac running every program conceivable.
The first find with the Manticore was a copper rivet still connected to leather from a horse harness. Encouraging since nonferrous targets dried up years ago. Second target part of a copper broach with the stone missing. Again very encouraging. It was a solid signal mixed with iron grunts.
Then I was gobsmacked when I got a solid repeating signal in an area loaded with coke and iron that was a dump for the old coal stove. At 6” out popped an 1888 IHC. I pulled three pieces of iron out of the spoil pile before I located it. I was dumbfounded. I could not believe what in the hell was occurring. In areas of iron I then pulled out 1916D and 1919 wheat penny’s. I pulled iron out of the spoil pile with the 1916D and the 1919 was only a one way repeater amidst iron grunts at 10”.
I still can’t believe what I just experienced. My settings:
All Terrain General
Long Noise Cancel @-6
Ground Balance 0
Recovery Speed 3
Upper Ferrous Limit 8
Lower Ferrous Limit 4
Ferrous Volume 4
Ferrous Pitch 1
Stabilizer 4
Stabilizer Filter Off
1 Region All Tones
Audio Theme Normal
Threshold Level 10
Threshold Pitch 1
Profile Medium
Frequency MultiIQ
Ferrous Indication On

I hunted with stock All Terrain General disc pattern and when at least a solid one way tone was heard I pressed the horseshoe for all metal to check for a repeatable signal in the iron grunts and looking for a repeatable black TID number amidst the red iron indicated TID’s. The wiggle method worked great for pinpointing with the 9” coil. The detector ran amazingly stable. I synced with it immediately. I expected a LONG learning curve. First pic is coins. The second pic is coins with nonferrous items at top and ferrous trash to the right I pulled out of the holes with the coins. Sorry for the long winded post but I AM BLOWN AWAY!!!
A special shout out to Bart @Big Boys Hobbies and to all you on this board. Bart and all of you were right and I was wrong. I am happy about that. I now have many, many sites I had previously written off to revisit. I feel like that 10 year old boy strapping his metal detector to his bicycle for the first time.

I was wrong about the Manticore too initially. I didn't believe that I had missed much of anything after using the Equinox 600 and 800, Nokta Legend and Deus 1/ORX along with a V3i, DFX, Etrac and many, many others. I just figured that Multi IQ+ was more of the same and since I didn't care much for the Equinox 900 after briefly owning one, I just wrote the Manticore off as BS hype. I was very, very wrong. Manticore and Deus 2 are absolutely fantastic detectors that can just about do anything, anywhere on just about any detectable sized target with depth down to 1 foot with good IDs even in the high mineralization where I live using their 11" coils on coin sized targets. Manticore is about an inch deeper than Deus 2 here and 2" deeper than my old Equinox 800 even running the Manticore at 75% sensitivity versus Deus 2 and the 800 at 95% sensitivity.

There is constant speculation from people that believe they are all set with the VLF detectors they already own and that VLF metal detectors are not really getting any better. Depending on ground conditions and preferred targets, that could be true. BBS/FBS and single frequency may get the job done for you especially if you don't need to do a lot of selective target hunting and beep dig on deep targets is good enough. However, these new SMF VLFs are the real deal. They aren't just the latest and greatest fluff. Depth + speed + target ID accuracy capability on all targets + ground handling + waterproof + great ergonomics + great audio options mean something more than gimmicks. For me anyway, they have made detecting a real pleasure instead of stressing about whether to dig or not or blindly believing I am so good with my detector that I can't possibly be missing anything......

I WAS.

Thanks for your reply. I have no trouble admitting I was wrong. Probably because I am used to it. Seriously though several people have intimated that I was missing targets and I just couldn’t fathom it could be the case. I mean I hunted with so many detectors and customized so many programs on the etrac so many times it just seemed improbable.
I ran at 20 sensitivity for the hunt and didn’t mess with it because it was so stable. The 2D screen is absolutely no gimmick. When it painted a target on the centerline, tone sounded respectable and TID’s were in the ballpark I dug. Even if it bled towards upper or lower ferrous I figured it was all the iron causing it. I was rewarded.
The weight and ergonomics were a treat. The coil not being keyed due to being round shaft was a little aggravating. Probably need to tighten the cam locks some to help keep the coil in line.
I was so in the zone I forgot to ground balance but in all honestly set at zero it ran well. I was in so much iron all the time I was unable to get a real handle on TID’s. The 3 cents ranged from 60’s to low 70’s as I remember but I didn’t focus on numbers like I thought I would. Love the manticore tones. Similar to etrac but not as nuanced. I have listened to many, many Deus videos because that was on my list but it’s tones just are not my cup of tea.

 

[north1]

It’s GOOD to feel much younger! Please keep us (or at least me) informed of your journey learning the Manticore.

Had an hour after work and before dark. Focused on an 20’x60’ area in front of an old building in my yard that is long gone. Just foundation left. Never found much in this area with any detector I have had. It is a solid carpet of iron.
My first find was a 1993 zincoln. I thought “you got to be kidding me. This is what I get for digging through iron thicker than hair on a dog”. But next find was part of a copper necklace. Then a solid 26/27 that repeated between the grunts when I switched to all metal . The black 26/27 numbers would appear when working the coil between the iron which gave varying iron numbers which were red. Recovered a no-date buffalo nickel at 7”.
This Manticore can hunt.

 

[Mark kus]

Love mine been using it 2 solid years the 9" coil never comes off I've found more gold with mine than any other detector one ring was solid 24K! A few of my latest
it's paid its self off many times good luck
Mark

 

[markinswpa]

Had an hour after work and before dark. Focused on an 20’x60’ area in front of an old building in my yard that is long gone. Just foundation left. Never found much in this area with any detector I have had. It is a solid carpet of iron.
My first find was a 1993 zincoln. I thought “you got to be kidding me. This is what I get for digging through iron thicker than hair on a dog”. But next find was part of a copper necklace. Then a solid 26/27 that repeated between the grunts when I switched to all metal . The black 26/27 numbers would appear when working the coil between the iron which gave varying iron numbers which were red. Recovered a no-date buffalo nickel at 7”.
This Manticore can hunt.

Congrats on the Buff. I also dug a Buff yesterday with red line under the #s, a 24-25. Not sure how accurate the red line is. I've dug many a nickel with them and a ton of iron that didn't show it. I will usually pop the plug and rescan, if the signal falls apart it junk, if it holds it is usually a beavertail or a nickel. Right after that Buff I got a 27-28-29 that was a 45 war nickel. That was in the first 15 minutes, thought I was gonna have a great day. Nope, the next 6 hours was a junk fest, a wheat and a little over a buck in. clad. Good luck

 

[silvercoinboy]

I to started with a Sears big box White's Detector the 4D/B in 1978 when I was 12. and I to have the Manticore and am impressed with its ability to sniff out non ferrous targets in a sea of iron