Two days before the DIV 5 hunt, I received my new X70 from JW at KellyCo. I put it together, turned it on, turned it off, took it apart and packed it for the trip.
Now for those of you that did not attend DIV 5, there are not words to describe how bad this ground can be. Best description I've heard is "powdered iron". It's not that your machine falses or anything but it is what it does to the overall ability of the machine. Just as an example, the X70 indicated every minieball I found as being -8. This is normally an iron reading. I had several people tell me that the White's MXT was reading minieballs as "Hot Rock". The best and only way to hunt in this ground is in all metal and dig all signals.
Day 1
I started out setting up the X70 in all metal mode with a sensitivity of 15 and no threshold. With this setting I found 4 minieballs, a scabbard tip, a bayonet scabbard throat and misc other items. I was getting good depth on the minie's (6"+) and had no problem locking onto signals. The machine did not false very much but due to the ground conditions the pinpoint mode was useless.
After lunch, I pulled out the manual and read up on Prospecting mode. I decided to hunt in this mode with a threshold hum and the sensitivity set to 20. The key that made me switch was the manual stating that Prospecting mode as designed for highly mineralized ground. I immediately could tell a difference. The signals locked on harder and it was very easy to locate the targets in this mode. I also noticed a considerable increase in depth. I started digging minieballs at 8"+ (several were measured using my Predator Tools relic shovel and the hole depth was 2 inches above the blade). I ended up adding 15 more minies and a watch fob to my total.
Day 2
Setup the X70 in Prospecting mode the same as I had the day before. Once again I started to find minies. What was interesting was where I was finding them. I hunted the hill right by the tent first and dug quite a few from there. I next moved over to the corn field in the area where Bebo was hunting. I stared digging minies among the dig holes that were already there. For those not at the hunt, this are had been hammered by a lot of people. Again, these minies were deep. Based on what was found in that area, I should have stayed but I moved on through the corn field. It was at this point that I decided to crank the X70's sensitivity up to 24. Wow, what a difference. I started consistently digging deep minies that gave me just a whisper of a signal.
I also need to mention here another technique that was working for me. When I got a signal, I would hit the mode button and go back to all metal. If the signal locked on -8 then it was usually a bullet or button. If the signal locked on -6 then it was a piece of iron every time. This saved me some dig time.
I ended day 2 with 21 minies and several buttons.
Day 3
I setup the X70 just like I did the day before. The machine continued to work well with the most noticeable aspects being great depth and great separation of signal. This day was strictly a bullet day with a total of 41 minieballs.
Overall Impressions
This being my first time to use the X70, I was very impressed. I wish I could point out a weak feature of the machine but I feel like it worked extremely well in this type of ground. During the hunt I checked several signals against other machines. Most of the times other machines either gave a broken signal or no signal at all (I tried to check deep signals when possible). Several of the signals were no problems for machines that were being run in all metal mode.
I should mention that I did not have any problem ground balancing the X70. The auto GB was easy to use and saved me a lot of time that could be used hunting instead of checking the machine. The prospecting mode use the "Trac" GB feature so all I was really doing was double checking the all metal mode from time to time.
The signal numbers stayed true once I figured out what the ground was doing to the machine and depth indication seemed to be very consistent with the true depth of the item. I never found that "one" outstanding item but as you can see quantity of items was not a problem.
The Minelab X-Terra 70 is now my primary machine.
Donnie
My Treasure Spot
Now for those of you that did not attend DIV 5, there are not words to describe how bad this ground can be. Best description I've heard is "powdered iron". It's not that your machine falses or anything but it is what it does to the overall ability of the machine. Just as an example, the X70 indicated every minieball I found as being -8. This is normally an iron reading. I had several people tell me that the White's MXT was reading minieballs as "Hot Rock". The best and only way to hunt in this ground is in all metal and dig all signals.
Day 1
I started out setting up the X70 in all metal mode with a sensitivity of 15 and no threshold. With this setting I found 4 minieballs, a scabbard tip, a bayonet scabbard throat and misc other items. I was getting good depth on the minie's (6"+) and had no problem locking onto signals. The machine did not false very much but due to the ground conditions the pinpoint mode was useless.
After lunch, I pulled out the manual and read up on Prospecting mode. I decided to hunt in this mode with a threshold hum and the sensitivity set to 20. The key that made me switch was the manual stating that Prospecting mode as designed for highly mineralized ground. I immediately could tell a difference. The signals locked on harder and it was very easy to locate the targets in this mode. I also noticed a considerable increase in depth. I started digging minieballs at 8"+ (several were measured using my Predator Tools relic shovel and the hole depth was 2 inches above the blade). I ended up adding 15 more minies and a watch fob to my total.
Day 2
Setup the X70 in Prospecting mode the same as I had the day before. Once again I started to find minies. What was interesting was where I was finding them. I hunted the hill right by the tent first and dug quite a few from there. I next moved over to the corn field in the area where Bebo was hunting. I stared digging minies among the dig holes that were already there. For those not at the hunt, this are had been hammered by a lot of people. Again, these minies were deep. Based on what was found in that area, I should have stayed but I moved on through the corn field. It was at this point that I decided to crank the X70's sensitivity up to 24. Wow, what a difference. I started consistently digging deep minies that gave me just a whisper of a signal.
I also need to mention here another technique that was working for me. When I got a signal, I would hit the mode button and go back to all metal. If the signal locked on -8 then it was usually a bullet or button. If the signal locked on -6 then it was a piece of iron every time. This saved me some dig time.
I ended day 2 with 21 minies and several buttons.
Day 3
I setup the X70 just like I did the day before. The machine continued to work well with the most noticeable aspects being great depth and great separation of signal. This day was strictly a bullet day with a total of 41 minieballs.
Overall Impressions
This being my first time to use the X70, I was very impressed. I wish I could point out a weak feature of the machine but I feel like it worked extremely well in this type of ground. During the hunt I checked several signals against other machines. Most of the times other machines either gave a broken signal or no signal at all (I tried to check deep signals when possible). Several of the signals were no problems for machines that were being run in all metal mode.
I should mention that I did not have any problem ground balancing the X70. The auto GB was easy to use and saved me a lot of time that could be used hunting instead of checking the machine. The prospecting mode use the "Trac" GB feature so all I was really doing was double checking the all metal mode from time to time.
The signal numbers stayed true once I figured out what the ground was doing to the machine and depth indication seemed to be very consistent with the true depth of the item. I never found that "one" outstanding item but as you can see quantity of items was not a problem.
The Minelab X-Terra 70 is now my primary machine.
Donnie
My Treasure Spot
and was pounding away at a already hard hit Ft. Powhatan. The 70 served me well and held it's own against everything out there, no SPECIAL finds for me either but hey, we were digging relics ... some anyway 
