Metal detector performance
I made another trip into the hills of Vicksburg with the Nautilus DMC-IIB metal detector, and once again had to come out of the woods after less than an hour. The performance of the machine is fine, but with the 15” head, the weight is hard to deal with. I dug several deep signals, nothing but junk, including a brass valve that must weigh ten pounds. The complexity of tuning the detector - it has to be “just so” or it won’t get the job done – again had me carrying along the instruction manual. The Troy Shadow X5 that I’ve owned for about two years is much simpler and more forgiving and lighter, but I don’t believe it’s capable of the depth performance of the Nautilus with the big head. But my old Fisher 1266 (they don’t make them anymore) with its 11 inch coil may be just as good as the Nautilus, though its discrimination ability probably isn’t quite as good. When you think about it, the game of detecting is similar to the game of golf - a special club or detector for each application. There’s no one combination of detector and head suited for all applications.