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Kraemer
Twenty five years after Hombre and Monte I now have an XLT! Better late than never! Am delighted with my acquisition. Have receipts from a little over a year ago when Whites refurbished this unit. Operationally and visually the unit is as new. Wondering if we’ll see twenty five year old ETrac’s and CTX’s that will function as new in the future? Also can’t imagine what that would cost you if you did. XLT is a genuine bargain.

Having a very clean and great-working XLT is a very good thing. There isn't, and never has been, a 'perfect' metal detector made for general-purpose use. However, White's came very close with the XLT, and all of their upper-end models ever since fall short of the XLT in many ways, at least from all my experiences.

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Kraemer
Now comes the work of matching the Bigfoot coil with the proper settings to take advantage of the potential rewards. We just had tens of thousands of people for a River Festival and several firework shows, so I figured something got left behind. Coin shooting has been disappointing recently so will try to focus on the jewelry and gold.

For me, I like to keep things 'simple' and with the XLT, like so many multi-function upper-cost models before (like with the Eagle series) and up to the present, we find a lot of adjustments that are not really necessary, not fully functional without other adjustments to counter what you just changed, and quite simply some have adjustment ranges that are so extreme that a user can easily end up with a really poor-performing detector.

With the XLT, and for the bulk of my detecting sites, I left most of the adjustments at their default setting and only made a few significant change. I didn't really mess up the performance, I enhanced some of it for the bulk of where I go, and then I make use of the most efficient search coils for the site environments I like to work and use a sower and methodical sweep speed fitting to the XLT's circuitry design.

As you mention, it is important to match or select the best coil(s) available for what we want to do. I am not a 950 coil fan and for more open areas with limited trash targets, I like the better weight and balance of the round 8" Concentric coils. But the bulk of my hunting is in trashier places, brushier environments, and others where I might encounter building rubble and such. My #1 preferred search coil on the XLT is the 6½" Concentric, like the Bullseye, 5.3 Black Max, or 'original' Blue Max 600. I tried the Bigfoot when it came out, and periodically since then, but for me and my preferred sites, it just didn't work well for me at all. Too big, too awkward, and sometimes no depth where needed, plus I deal with very trashy conditions.

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Kraemer
Have all the pieces to put my puzzle together now. The easy part is done. We will see if I have a winning combination or not

My "winning combination" is loaded on my back seat right now with a CoRe, Relic, Omega 8000, and two Tesoro's as I am headed out as soon as I get this posted. Planning on using the XLT w/6½" Concentric in several sites I have selected ... as long as the weedy growth isn't an access issue.

Best of success with your XLT.

Monte

"Your EYES ... the only 100% accurate form of Discrimination!"
Stinkwater Wells Trading Post
Metal Detector Evaluations and Product Reviews monte@ahrps.org ... or ... monte@stinkwaterwells.com 503-481-8147Detectors: Vanquish 540 / CoRe, Relic & Simplex + / Bandido II µMAX & Silver Sabre µMAX / XLT Pinpointers: Pulse-Dive & ProPointer AT .. Headphones: Killer B's 'Hornet' & 'Wasp' ... Garrett MS-3 Z-LynkNote: Detectors are listed alphabetically by Brand. Models are chosen based on search site conditions.*** All working well today to make memories for tomorrow. ***