Minelab Equinox 6 Inch Double D Coil Review

I've been using the Minelab 6' inch double D coil on and off for a good few months now, in my mind this is a specialist coil that's perfect for certain situations, it isn't a coil I'd leave on my detector on a near permanent basis. I know there's a lot of people out there that have back up machines and if you're a fan of trashy park hunting then I can see why the 6' inch coil could be a 'mainstay' in your approach. I don't hunt parks, here in the UK you can't just turn up and detect them, I'm more of a pasture and field hunter, for me personally, there are a number scenarios where I'll choose to swing it, firstly, high trash areas for its separation abilities, these are areas where I'm sensing the larger coils might be missing targets in and amongst the trash and iron - it's actually these signals that interest me the most. Don't get me wrong, both the 11' inch stock coil and my 15' inch Coiltek are fantastic at separating targets but for me the 6' inch just seems to have the edge.

I'l give you an example, the other week I was out hunting and I came across an area where there was a hell of a lot of iron, I was getting a fair bit of falsing but within the low tones of the iron and the high tones of the falsing, a mid-tone was creeping through from one direction only. I had a feeling this might be a good target, because the 6' inch coil is so small I always keep it in backpack. I swapped the 11' inch coil out with the 6' inch and went over the same spot really carefully again, I managed to get a fairly decent mid-tone in the same place from two directions. This indicated to me that there could very well be a decent target down there, I decided to dig it, after removing a fair few small iron nails along with a few medium sized bent nails, sitting at around 9' inches down was a lovely Tombac button.

Dug 9' Inches Down Within Trash & Iron

This was a perfect demonstration of how effective this specific coil can be in situations such as this, other scenarios that I choose to use it in are tight spaces, for example, under bushes and in tight areas along hedgerows and ditches, it also comes in handy searching within the longer grass and on stubble fields. Also if I've been working an area for a number of weeks with my larger coils, once the signals dry up I'll carefully comb over the same area with the 6' inch to see if I can squeeze anything else out, this approach has been successful on a number of occasions. So going back to the coil itself, being only 6' inches it literally fits in the palm of your hand, it might be small but it feels solid, it doesn't feel cheap and flimsy. Once connected to the Equinox it feels super lightweight and is very easy to swing, if you've only used larger coils then the 6' inch will take a little getting use to. Obviously the ground you cover has been massively reduced but, as mentioned before, this is a coil for specific situations, you wouldn't select it if you want to cover as much ground as possible in both fields, pasture and on the beach. Also if you're swinging quickly in high trash areas, due to its size, signals come at you really quickly so adjusting your swinging speed is important.  

A Perfect Partnership

My 'go to' recovery speed for most of my detecting is 4 I find this gives me the best of both worlds, I get good depth and still get a tight separation. When you combine that with the sensitivity set between 21 to 25 I feel I'm getting the most out of whatever coil I use. I always crank the sensitivity up as far as I can go without getting unnecessary chatter, in most of my fields I can get away with a setting of 25, due to the size of the 6' inch coil you can get away with a higher sensitivity compared to larger coils. When I first used the coil I did experiment a little bit, I took it to one of my trashy fields and upped the recovery speed to 6, sped my swing speed up and only dug the high/coin tones. It performed fantastically, hitting on the targets strongly and pinpointing was super easy. I then took it to another field that tends to have much deeper targets, this is when I lowered the recovery speed back to 4 and swung nice and slow, again, it performed flawlessly and I was digging targets between 6 to 9 inches easily. I haven't performed any air tests, I find them pointless, I'd rather use it in the field and over a period of time you can start to gauge the performance. For the size of the coil I'd say that you get really good depth, depending on the the size of the target I think you'll good for at least 9 inches, possibly more which is fantastic especially when you compare it to the 5' inch coil I use on my Fisher F19, that's about 5-6 inches maximum. 

To sum up, as mentioned before, this is a specialist coil that's ideal for scenarios where a larger coil isn't suitable, for it's size you get great depth and separation, it's well built, sensitive to the smallest of targets and it's a real joy to swing. Many out there might not feel they need a coil so small but if you're a park hunter or you have a couple of permissions that are loaded with trash an iron then it might be worth investing in it, you could be surprised with what you end up finding. It was a worthwhile purchase for me and I know I'm going to get a great deal of use out of it, it's already proved itself on a number of occasions.

Retail Price £220

Rating 10/10