Frank in NH
Active member
Anyone tried both and what do you recommend and why?
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Makro 7.5x 4'' or 5'' DD which one?
- Thread starter Frank in NH
- Start date
Yes, I have used both sizes on a couple of different models. The difference is more about where you plan to hunt, how much trash or confined space you'll encounter, if the debris is more ferrous than no-ferrous, and if it is a very challenging close-association between the nails and other ferrous debris and a desired target.
I am usually going to favor a smaller-size search coil on most detectors for the very busy places I like to search. I found the 4X7½ DD coil to be comfortable, and it worked satisfactorily in most typical urban trashy places, such as around a well-used picnic bowery or other littered place. But for taking on closely-positioned iron nails and other dense ferrous debris, the smaller 5" DD coil is the way to go. I'm speaking from experience and not just throwing out a 'best guess' on this one.
Monte
Frank in NH
Active member
Monte i was hoping you would reply, and have to agree with your response, makes sense.
Dave_E
Troll
I owned the 4.5"x 5" (named OOR by Monte) coil for my Racer 2, and I currently own the 7.5"x 4" for my Impact.
For my trashy areas, I much prefer the 7.5" x 4" (which I call the little football).
Better coverage and depth, and only slightly less separation.
Maybe it's just the Impact, but I'm telling you that paired with the little football, it's magic.
For my trashy areas, I much prefer the 7.5" x 4" (which I call the little football).
Better coverage and depth, and only slightly less separation.
Maybe it's just the Impact, but I'm telling you that paired with the little football, it's magic.
Jeffrey D.
Member
I just recently purchased the 7.5X4 coil for my anfibio and I have to say that I am very impressed with the depth and separation. I used it for the first time in a very small park that is old, trashy, and has been hammered hard by metal detectorists over the years and my second find was a 1902 Indian head penny.
When I got my first Nokta FORS CoRe in early January of 2015, the smaller 'OOR' DD coil (the slightly Out-Of-Round 4.7X5.2) quickly impressed me with exceptional performance in very dense iron debris. I was working it side-by-side against a few other proven detectors with their 5" DD coils, such as the T2 Classic. I then got the prototype original Makro Racer with the same-size 'OOR' DD coil and it, also, worked great.
In January of 2016 I got both the Nokta FORS Relic and Makro Racer 2, and those models came with a round 5" DD instead of an 'OOR' shaped DD, and both of those models also work extremely well in very dense iron trash. For those who hunt in a lot of iron nails and other ferrous junk, I am certain some are in some challenging places, but I can assure you, several old ghost towns I hunt have an unbelievable amount of tough iron to deal with. Now, in the over half-a-century I have been enjoying this great spsort I don't ignore urban Coin Hunting opportunities, either, and when I got the first Nokta Impact in-hand in January of 2017, the Pro Pack came with the elliptical 4X7½ DD coil. I immediately got bussy with my evaluation of tha Impact 'package' and especially the small coil.
Just remember, overall performance is not based on the search coil size, shape or type alone. it also requires a good detector circuitry design to get the most performance out of it. It was early January and her in Western Oregon it was too cold and way to white as we had an all-time record-setting winter in '16/'17. I had to make some travels to use the Impact in some Coin Hunting environments and I liked the 4X7½"" 'Football' coil .... for those places and those challenges. I also did some at-home testing in my 12X20 fully-enclosed woodshed that has a road-mix dirt and gravel ground cover and I can test sample targets and be out of the elements.
But spring was coming and I wanted to be ready for some ghost town hunting. I set up a really tough test and invited my hunting buddy, Gregg, to bring all his detectors and small coils over for some testing, and it was then that I didn't care for the 4X7½ DD coil. Instead of using an Indian Head 1¢ coin as a test target with four iron nails, we replaced it with a smaller and much thinner 1836 Capped Bust Half-Dime. This helped show which coils worked better, and especially which detector circuitry worked better. Using the Indian Head Cent, My three Tesoro models with an 8" or 7" or 6" Concentric coil would give 8-out-of-8 good hits. So would a White's Classic ID or IDX Pro with a 6½" or 4½" Concentric coil, or an MXT Po or M6 w/6½" Concentric. The Nokta or Makro Racer and Racer 2 w/either the 'OOR' or 5" round DD coils, and the FORS CoRe w/'OOR' and Relic w/5", and even the Impact with 4X7½ DD gave a good 7-out-of-8 hits.
Then we replaced the coin with the dinky, thin Half-Dime .... everything changed! Using all though detectors we had with their factory=produced smaller coils, ONLY ONE PACKAGE would give 8-out-of-8 hits on the Half-Dime. That was the CoRe w/'OOR' DD. My Relic w/5" DD would give 7-out-of-8 and kind of an 'iffy' tick on the missed opportunity. And as much as I like the 'OOR' DD, it excelled with the CoRe design, but on the Racer or Racer 2, their 'OOR' DD only got 4-out-of-8 hits while the 5" DD got 5-out-of-8 hits. That 4X7½ DD 'football' coil on the Impact only matched the 4-out-of-8 like the smaller-size 'OOR' on the Racer 2.
But that bad news brought us some good results! Dilek quickly heard about and read the results Gregg posted on my Forum, so she dropped me an e-mail then gave me a phone call. I told her the 4X7½ DD was a good coil, for certain applications like typical urban trash at a park and such, and that the coil worked well for average Coin Hunting. However, for taking on very dense Iron Nail contaminated sites like I do in quite a few old ghost towns I hunt, we needed to have a smaller coil. Something like an 'OOR' or 5" DD size. The led design engineer quickly made two 5" DD coils. One for them and one for me and sent me the prototype to evaluate. On the exact duplicate test, the Impact w/5" DD then got 7-out-of-8 to match the results I got from my very proven relic hunting detector, the 19 kHz FORS Relic.
I gave them the thumbs-up and Nokta then got a 5" DD in production for the Impact. Better still, they made some other nice coils, to include the open-frame 5X9½ DD for the CoRe and Relic (I got one for each of mine) and also for the Racer and Racer 2 (they share search coils) and also for the Impact, which was their top-of-the-line at the time. And they didn't stop their, either. They made an excellent round 7" Concentric coil for the Racer 2 and the Impact. I keep my Racer 2 at-the-ready with the 7" Concentric full-time.
Search coils can be just as interesting to study and learn as metal detectors can be, and I did like the little 'football' coil for urban Coin Hunting, but I have enough detectors with smaller-size to mid-size coils already mounted that I don't need that coil in my arsenal. And for the really nasty iron contaminated places, I have the smaller 'OOR' or 5" DD already mounted on models best suited for that task.
Monte