I know that the Cibola is a nice little detector, an excellent coin machine, but it is not (normally) known to be a depth demon, and not quite as close to the depth of the Vaquero, or 1265, and especially the 1266 Fishers, especially in higher iron soils. I'm wondering if there was some kind of a problem with your old 1265x. "4 more inches of depth" is quite a lot df, that would be a gain of about 50%. It is quite possible that the coil of the Vaquero was just swung a little above or below that target you picked up with that Fisher. I can't even begin to tell you how many more finds I made laying next to junk with the Cibola over the Fisher in the same field pounded hard with that 1265x. There were also much deeper targets picked up by the Cibola the Fisher wouldn't even whisper on.
The Vaquero is the EXACT same machine as the Cibola only it has a manual ground balance that will penetrate deeper than the Cibola in bad ground. Also the Fisher does not have good iron discrimination and will tell you that the good target laying next to that nail is bad because the nail is there. My Cibola is a preset machine like that Fisher and would at least get 4 more inches of depth than the 1265x. There is no way that thing is deeper than a Vaquero. I owned a Fisher 1265x for years and although a deep machine it has plenty of faults. I uploaded a picture of the little rocks. The Tesoro service manager called me after normal working hours and talked to me for almost 2 hours discussing my soil conditions and options.
Tesoro usually will repair a detector for free even if you bought it used. I have not even tried these machines any where else.
Keep in mind I only plan to hunt my farm for the most part. After I sell the Vaquero and the 1266XB, I will try a Tejon. For my soil conditions, the Lobo seems to work the best. I will be selling my 1266xb and the Vaquero soon. I'm playing musical detectors trying to find something that works. That way if it doesn't work for you and you paid a fair price, you can re-sell it and not loose very much. For that reason, I am selling my Vaquero.Īnother word of advice I have is to buy used. One thing I really don't like about the Vaquero is when you are in all metal mode to go into discriminate, you have to turn two knobs to a setting. Because of my unique conditions, I probably can't do a fair comarison. I have some top quality machines, but they will only go 4-5 inches max. I am also surrounded by gold mines and found a prospecting hammer on my property. I'm going to take some of the rocks to them. They look like iron but the magnent didn't pick them up. Most of them are BB size and the concentration is very high. It's way worse than the typical Georgia red clay. When my vaquero came back from Tesoro, I put it's 9x8 coil on the lobo. I will have some used detectors for sale in a couple of months. It may be that the detector is not the best for my soil. it will be interesting to see what Tesoro says. I don't know if there is something wrong with my Vaquero or not. I have been busy because I am currently moving in the farmhouse. Then I will pick the best performing detector from the 4 and sell all the rest. The lobo is designed for extremely mineralized ground.
I don't have it yet, but I bought slightly used Tesoro Lobo to test on my buried quarters. Evidently I have strong ground mineralization. It is somewhat of a strain but if finds the quarter buried 7". I just bought a used fisher 1266x on ebay. It's all metal mode don't work no more.Īs of now I sent the detector back to Tesoro. My old bounty Hunter Outlaw finds it in discriminate mode. The Vaquero found the one 4" and is a strain to find the one I have to turn everything to the max which gives me so many false signals, I could never find any similar sized object 5" or more. I planted a test Garden of quarters 4",5",6" and 7". It was no improvement over my Tesoro Conquistador that I bought about 10 years ago that cost a lot less money. In my soil, I was dissapointed in the depth of the Vaquero. In the 1980's I hunted civil war artifacts very heavily abd have owned a few detectors. About 2 months ago, I purchased a Tesoro Vaquero to hunt around my farmhouse I just purchased that was built in 1890.