Question - 10" Elliptical coil

[BarberBill]

Would like to hear opinions and experiences using the 10" elliptical coil on the Vaquero. In theory it should have reasonable dapth, good ground coverage and work through trashy areas fairly well. This enquiring mind would like to know. Thanks -
BB

 

[Minas man]

Have been using the stock Vaquero coil for about 5 years and in an attempt to work salt marshes 2 weeks ago switched to 10 inch elliptical. I had bought the elliptical years before but did not have the experience with the DD wide scan coil to use it successfully so it has been on the shelf till now. Ears not trained.
I was successful to a degree on the salt marsh area when the marsh was dry but after a oven night rain I was unable to stabilize the ground balance. The stock coil would not even balance in the dry conditions of the salt marsh so that is to the elliptical advantage.
The elliptical is a pleasure to swing as it's shape makes it easy to get in around brush and tree trunks. I was able to put that coil in a lot tight spaces as it is only 5 inches wide at its widest point and the leading radius is even narrower and with no spokes to get tangled up. The narrow leading edge gets you in next to tree trunks and rocks where the stock coil is limited by its size.
The difference in the weight between my stock coil with cover and the elliptical with no cover but an 8 foot cord is about 40 grams which does not seem like a lot but I could really feel that weight difference. I will chalk it up to adding weight or removing weight from the end of a long pole makes a big difference even if the weight is seemingly small.

I found that I could have a bit faster swing in discrimination mode than stock so the elliptical is more responsive.
There is a loss of discrimination of bottle caps with the elliptical but the roughness of the signal gives it away that the signal it is not a coin. Coins on edge are the tricky signals and if in doubt I dig.
Might be a loss of depth over stock but for where I am digging it is not a problem as there are lots of good signals that are shallower than the 8 inch depth.
Love using the toe and heel of coil to separate multiple targets and was able to spend an hour in a very small patch that kept on giving.

I switched back to stock coil for an hour and I felt out of the grove so I put on elliptical back on and it felt so much better so from now I will leave it on unless hunting conditions warrant a change up to stock 9x8 concentric.

My 5x10 elliptical DD is an old style coil with a hard plastic strain relief on the coil.

Minas man

 

[BarberBill]

Thanks for the reply. I am considering getting one because I use the 6X10 DD 90% of the time on my MXT with good results. The detection pattern handles many trashy areas better than a 9Inch or so concentric so it seems like a good choice to me. I wish Tesoro made the same or a similar coil for the Umax series of detectors also.
BB