(Reprinted with permission from Western & Eastern Treasures magazine May, 2010 issue)
Author Bryce Brown checks out a hit beside a memorial cannon at one of the test sites.
Testing The Sunray X-5 Coil
By Bryce Brown
With so many people enjoying this wonderful hobby, it's getting tougher to find old coins at the heavily worked parks and other areas that used to be productive. There is no secret to finding the goodies and no shortcut, either. Trust me though... there are many good coins left hiding amid the trash and iron. You just have to be willing to slow down, work a little harder, and have the right coil to sniff through the trash.
I decided on the Sun Ray X-5 because of its reputation for being able to find coins hiding among multiple junk targets. I wanted to put it through its paces at five trashy and iron-infested sites that I have pounded for years, and to see for myself just how good the X-5 really is.
Site #1 was an old park where small carnivals and town festivals have been held over the past 70 years or so. As soon as I arrived and began to put on my detecting gear, it started raining. Rather than give up and go home, I decided that I needed to improvise. So, I paid a visit to the local thrift store and purchased a roll of duct tape, along with a box of large sandwich bags. I thoroughly covered the Sun Ray X1 switch box. I then wrapped my handiwork with some duct tape to keep the makeshift rain covers in place. It looked a little funny, but it did the trick.
It was now down to 36 degrees and raining steadily... but I'm stubborn when I am in the mood to hunt. There was a stretch of ground where an old set of bleachers stood from the '30s until the late '70s, and that's right where I headed, because it had a very high concentration of trash in a small area.
Over the next four hours I was able to recover several keeper targets with the X-5 which were hidden among aluminum scraps, pieces of wire, .22 shell casings, etc. These included an insignia ring, 1914 & 1925 Wheat cents, a silver Roosevelt dime, and a Wheat made into a token with the Lord's Player engraved on it. The best find of the day was a beautiful sterling silver & black onyx cameo ring which weighed over 10 grams. It was found about 8" down, with a nail and a 3" piece of aluminum in the same hole. The X-5 was able to sniff out the silver between the iron and aluminum.
The silver filigree cameo ring found on the first day of testing the X-5 coil.
Site #2 was an old baseball field from the 1920s which had hosted a variety of events over the years: beer festivals, annual town picnics, and horseshoe tournaments, just to name a few. This small site had a barrage of iron bits, trash, and pulltabs, along with interference from an overhead transformer. During the next four hours the X-5 did a nice job of finding some old coins in the trash while handling the interference quite well. I ended up with two Mercury dimes, four Wheat cents, and an 1898 Indian Head cent.
The Indian Head came from a measured 7" deep and had a pulltab within 1" of it at the bottom of the hole. The X-5 did a wonderful job of separating these two targets which have very similar sounds. I heard the pulltab tone... then immediately heard the slightly higher Indian Head tone, and I attribute that act to this coil.
Site #3 was an old volleyball court which was in use from the '60s through the late '70s. I had found some nice jewelry there over the years but I was hoping there were more goodies hiding along a stretch of fence which was put around the area in the early '80s. I knew there wouldn't be any old coins, but I was in the mood to sniff some goodies out. This fence was put directly through the center of the ground where everyone used to sit and take off their jewelry before playing, and was also used by spectators who wanted to sit and watch the game. I was hopeful that the X-5 coil could get me close enough to the fence to ferret out some more trinkets that the other coils couldn't get to.
Well it did just that. Not only did this coil get closer to the fence than any of my other coils without falsing, but I was able to get it almost directly underneath the fence line, which opened up a whole new world for me. Over the next four hours I picked up a silver Roosevelt dime, two Wheat cents, a sterling & jade earring, both halves of a broken sterling rope chain, a sterling silver ring, a sterling "half heart" pendent, and a nice sterling silver heart charm bracelet with a broken clasp. Incidentally, the X-5 coil picked up the tiny "half heart" pendent 7" deep, and there was a 2" piece of wire in the hole with it.
The rewards of working several high-trash sites with the Sunray X-5 coil.
Site #4 was an old concession area at a heavily worked park where I have hunted many times before. It dates back to the 1850s, and there is an abundance of deep, rusty iron to deal with. There is also a strip of this section that has a high concentration of trash on top of the iron, so this would be a formidable challenge for this coil to contend with. The X-5 would have to be able to handle the iron while also separating the keepers from the dense trash.
Again it performed exceptionally well, with minimal to no falsing over the heavy iron while pulling some nice old coins from the trash. In fact, it sniffed out a Barber dime that was 3" underneath a beaver-tail tab and wedged against a small rusty nail at a measured depth well over 7". After 4 hours I ended up with three Wheat cents, two Mercury dimes, a 1905 Barber dime, and the 1907 Indian Head cent.
Site #5 was an old football field that I have searched many times over the last five years. The sidelines used to yield occasional targets, some extremely deep and others masked by a variety of trash items or falsing from cinders and hot rocks. It was here that I decided to see if my new Sunray X-5 coil could find any coins that I had missed in the past, and also if it could handle the nasty mineralized ground. The last two trips here with other coils had produced nothing; so, just one coin would be a moral victory.
The area had been gridded from only one direction on previous hunts because that was the only possible way. It is a narrow strip in between two cinder paths, so I would be gridding it exactly as on previous hunts. If I did get some new signals, this would take the "different angle" theory out of play, and I could be confident that these were indeed signals produced solely by the performance of the X-5.
After a hard fought four hours I had come up with four coins which had been missed on numerous previous hunts. I won't mention the coils I have pounded this little strip with... but trust me, I have hit it very hard in the past. The X-5 sniffed out three Wheat cents and a Standing Liberty quarter from the cinder-infested dirt strip, which was also littered with pulltabs and aluminum bits. Very impressive!
Shown in the plug is a Standing Liberty quarter reclaimed from the cold, trash-infested ground.
There are some very important qualities to consider when purchasing a small coil for finding coins and jewelry in the trash. The X-5 met and exceeded all of my high expectations during this thorough field test:
1) It gave me a very accurate target ID.
2) The depth was exceptional for such a small coil.
3) I could run my SE at a very hot sensitivity setting of manual 30 with no falsing.
4) The target/trash separation was absolutely second to none. In fact, it was the best I have ever experienced.
5) The strength and quality of the signal when it hit coins in the trash or iron was crisp and clear.
6) It handled EMI (electro-magnetic interference), ground mineralization, iron, and wet ground with minimal to no falsing.
7) The 5.5" diameter made it a breeze to get in and around obstacles.
8) It was extremely sensitive to tiny jewelry items.
My final impression of this coil after putting it through the paces at some very pounded and trash infested sites is... it is definitely a keeper! It cuts through trash like a laser beam and is an absolute weapon against silver and other goodies hiding in heavily littered areas. No wonder it has the stellar reputation that it does. It has been a very popular coil for years - and now I know why.