Treasure Classifieds Forum

Here's one detector I have always had a love hate relationship with. The Minelab Musketeer. Every few years I find myself revisiting this model. Lost count how many I have owned--Colt, XS, Blue box, black box Advantage.

Decided to give it one more go. Skiwhiz had one he recently bought, had coil cable problem. The entire length was wrapped with electrical tape. Otherwise the Musky was in great shape. Guess the tape scared everyone who saw his for sale listing. He finally dropped the price to one I couldn't resist. Just had to have it.

The coil cable was causing some issues, so I stripped all the tape off that revealed a very deteriorating, crumbling insulating jacket that was covering the internal coil wires. Made the repairs which solved the issues and increased the depth back to normal.

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One of my dislikes was how heavy the Musky felt with the control box front mounted on the s-handle. Rear mounting was better, just felt awkward. Had a carbon fiber
straight shaft I made a year ago. It was originally going to be used for one of my Pi units. decided to use it with the Musky.

The straight shaft was 200% better than using the s-handle. Balances perfectly and swings easily, feels almost as light as a Tesoro umax. Have to admit its a great set-up. Looks like I will keep this Musky. Hoping I can change the pitch of the audio a bit.

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I was never fortunate enough to use a unit like that---wish I had. But I know the allure of the older detectors ( I use a very old White's 5000) and I enjoy reading about your experiences with them on this forum and on your own site.

Sewn, my first minelab was the Exp 2, so tell me why exactly do you enjoy that machine.

Tony

(09-10-2018 01:14 PM)Bigtony Wrote: [ -> ]Sewn, my first minelab was the Exp 2, so tell me why exactly do you enjoy that machine.

Tony

I really liked using the older Sterling, Tribune and Musky X. Those that came in a small muffler like control box. They were small, compact like a Tesoro, easy to swing, nice audio and found stuff. I liked them like guys like Tesoros or Troy X5's. Had a number of them. They retain cult status....
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I graduated to the Musketeer Advantage when I lived in Kennesaw/Dallas Georgia area. It was one of the few detectors that punched down thru the red clay dirt. Just didn't like the weight and nasty balance of it, heavy with the 10" coil. Eventually sold it. A few years later bought another, rear mounted the box. It was better, the realized don't care for the high pitch audio and the way it blasted your ears with full volume on surface targets. like some say you get an ear bashing. Sold it. Came across a nice Musky XS, tested it out, for some reason liked it.
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I decided to modify it into a Whites box. It was done, needed some tweaking, had the control box open. Cat jumped on the table, got caught in the coil cable, jumped off
the table and the detector followed. Never worked after that.

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Couple years later picked up a blue box Advantage, used it for awhile but, had a few Fishers and Tesoros better balance and weight, audio. Should have kept it but, we
were planning on a move, so I thinned the herd. It went.
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Picked up another XS, one winter, it was a lemon, away it had to go.

Then Skiwhiz's Advantage came up for sale. I ended up with it. After the fixing and the straight shaft mod,and liking the black box better. It turned out to be a keeper.
Especially since its on par with Keith Southerns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NIwfp8EpuY The audio is still a bit high in pitch and loudness, did find one particular set of headphones that I put a limiter in to soften those surface target blasts. Also, another set of headphones that the audio sound decent in. I was building a module to
change the pitch without using an external battery for power. the Musky did not have enough headphone power to power the chip. The module did work with the
Tesoros and a few other detectors, did smoothen out the threshold in all metal mode with the pitch control bypassed. So still working on a pitch control for it and sound
limiter. Winter project. The Musky will be a killer machine at our seeded treasure hunt at the end of the month. So that's where I am at with this Musky.

The Musky is an older machine, overall an excellent performer. Rarely come up for sale, guys just can't seem to part with them..............

Very interesting for sure. Your repair skills are a blessing to have and almost like another hobby.
Thanks for the run down to today’s new addition.
Best of luck at the upcoming seeded hunt.

Tony