The mighty new MYTHTEK coil

For the MINELAB Manticore detector, size does matter !

The Minelab Manticore detector has now been available in Australia for about 2 years. I bought one when they were first released Down Under.

I have now used my "Beast" of a Manticore for a total of 87 days (about 550 hours of swinging), including 64 days (about 450 hours) on the beaches.
My waterproof Manticore has detected numerous items of jewellery, and nearly one-thousand coins too, including many pre-decimal coins.

I am very impressed by the performance of the Manticore, including it's Two Dimensional (2D) Target Identification (ID) Map system.

Also, there are now five different coils available for the Manticore (four coils are made by Minelab).

This includes a NEW, big, round, spoked 18" DD coil - named the 'MYTHTEK' - made by the Aussie company 'COILTEK'. This coil was released in October 2024.

I have now had the opportunity to use this Aussie high-quality, whopper coil a few times on the beaches, and also at an inland site to hunt deep, old coins.

This coil weighs nearly 1kg. It is about 50% heavier than the next-biggest Minelab M15 coil. It also has a footprint area about 80% greater than the M15 (elliptical 15 x 12 inch DD) coil, and about 170% greater than the M11 (11 inch round DD) coil.

I use an elasticised Bunji (or Bungy) cord when I use such large coils for more than two-hours duration. I mostly swing my Manticore for anywhere between 6 and 8 hours on a given day of my detecting.

One could also consider using a Guide Arm (or Swing Arm) when using such a larger coil.

Below are my first impressions so far 

My 1st Hunt with the MYTHTEK coil 

One Saturday afternoon (after I finished work) - I went down to a beach at the Gold Coast (near Brisbane), and unleashed the new COILTEK 18" Mythtek coil - on my first hunt with this coil. I detected from 3pm until 8pm.

WOW 

I was very impressed with it. Even better knowing its Aussie-made too.

In less than about 5-hours, I detected four rings, a 68cm long silver chain, a matching pair of earrings, and about 20 coins (including a Spanish 10 Euro Cents coin dated 2018).

I also recovered a chunky/heavy, silver men's signet ring - that had been freshly lost by a young man (who was partying with about a dozen mates on the beach). The owner of this ring was extremely grateful. It only took me about 10 seconds to find it using this big coil.

The pin-pointing capability of this big coil, as well as the ability to run relatively-high Sensitivity levels on my Manticore, also exceeded my expectations.

I look forward to many more hours using this "Game-Changer" coil on the many beaches south & north of Brisbane !

My 2nd Hunt with the MYTHTEK coil 

On my 2nd outing with the mighty 18" MYTHTEK coil , I unleashed it on a thickly-grassed site where I have used the Minelab M15 coil on several days to find many Aussie pre-decimal coins at depths of up to about 12 inches.

I used the MYTHTEK coil for several hours, whilst I ran my Manticore detector on two different search modes (AT - Trash Reject, and AT - High Conductors), with the Sensitivity set high on 28, and the Recovery Speed set on 3, with Auto Ground Tracking on, and Enhanced/Medium audio profile (via the Minelab ML105 wireless headphones).

Accordingly, I was fortunate to find:

One "Victory Medal 1945" (a silver-plated bronze medalet that was issued to Aussie school children in 1945 to celebrate the end of the war in Europe), and a few Aussie pre-decimal coins.

The deepest coins were detected at a depth of about 14 to 15 inches !

My suspicions were correct - there were deeper coins at the site - that I was unable to detect with the M15 coil.

I was again impressed by the performance of the 18MYTHTEK coil, especially given that the gravelly soils at the site were moist (after 2 inches of rain over the previous week), and the soils are also slight mineralised and Acid Sulfate rich, as well as the site containing a variety of trash metal types & sizes.

I was also very impressed at how quiet the Manticore detector ran, especially given that the site is in an industrial area, and only a few kilometres away from an airport, and there are also power lines nearby the site.

 I am looking forward to soon using the 18 MYTHTEK coil again on a beach at the Gold Coast or the Sunshine Coast.

If you want a very high performance, relatively lightweight, deep-seeking, VLF technology detector combo - then it would be very hard to beat the Manticore and Mythtek coil combination.

Be prepared to then having a superior tactical advantage compared to the majority of other beach detectorists - by way of achieving a greater area of ground coverage, as well as digging deeper holes !

Put simply - more ground coverage PLUS more depth = more targets !

More information about the MYTHTEK coil can be found on the Gold Rat website  -  CLICK HERE