Excalibur VS Sea Hunter

[ArmyDiver]

I'm about to take the dive and purchase my first detector. I won't want to waste money on a "starter" detector and then have to spend that all over again when I get something better. I live 3 minutes from the beach and am also an avid diver. I want to get a detector that will work well on the beach and the surf after hurricanes and bigger storms as well as something I can use in the water. I set a 1200 dollar limit but ideally I would like to keep it closer to 800. I've seen many suggestions for the Excalibur II and people are saying it pays for itself but the Garrett Sea Hunter doesn't look bad either and is a little more reasonably priced. I'm open to suggestions and reasons why each is better as well as additional brand/model suggestions.

Thanks!

 

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[Indasurf]

Quote[Not trying to say Excal is better then Infinium, only saying an Excal with WOT coil is extremely deep and the combination will give any PI detector a run for the money, water or land....I used my Excal on land for well over a year and it was an excellent land detector....I have found tiny gold earrings with it as well as tiny gold rings. True, have found no tiny gold chains and could care less, very little gold in tiny chains, any chain that has a large clasp, or pendent will be found.]Quote

This might be true because you're hunting in FL. A pulse detector won't show its true potential depth wise in such clean sand........but come up N.E. and a PI will usually get deeper targets in bad black sand over most other detector types (each machine has its pros and cons)!

I also don't dig much iron and junk because I use the features and have learned the tones on the Infinium (ear training).
If you truly spend some time learning how to correctly use this detector, you'll dig much less junk over another PI detector.

I had a SOV and I'm not knocking it, it's a fine detector, I just didn't care for some of the nuances with it.
I've done much better with my Infinium, but hey, to each his own.

I also do relic hunting and the machine is a whip in this department

I'm not here to knock detectors, just stating the facts as I see them.

It also seems that some members on the various forums give opinions on machines that they've never owned, only read about or hearsay. To make an honest assessment about any detector, one should spend some time with it to fully evaluate the good and bad on that specific machine and come to their own conclusions!

A PI detector will shine in the depth dept as the mineralization and black sand increase.........I might not even use one if I lived and hunted in Florida.

Actually, now that I think about it, I would probably get one of the Eric Foster machines. If I were in FL or an area with clean sand, then there is one PI I would evaluate that some say ignores iron, and from what I've read is one of the deepest too, just doesn't work well in black sand (I would have to test this out for myself).

This is my last post for a awhile.......It's really tiring rehashing the same questions again and again when all the answers have already been posted on the forums.

Thanks and HAPPY HUNTING!

 

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[architecad]

What happens is many Excalibur user live in Florida(not all) and Florida beaches you can find many iron because there is a lots of retirement water front condo and during the construction of those building, many labor used to dump to the water those irons. I don't have any problem with my Sea hunter because I don't detect in Florida and it discriminate good enough. I used to detect in Jupiter inlet where I found a lots of old iron probably from some old shipwreck.

I remember in 2004, I met with a guy in Palm Beach where he was using an Excalibur and I was using my GTI2500. When we begun to detect, I was detecting behind him. Soon I detected a tiny gold ring right after where he wiped the coil with the excalibur. This story is not the only one I know about excalibur detectors.


Arch

Arch,

No offense meant, but I could do the same thing following you or anyone else. It isn't the detector that is missing the targets, it is the person using it and it isn't that they are bad hunters, it is usually because of the sweep, it is not overlapping, and they are missing areas between the sweeps. This is the reason I have no concerns about following another hunter, it is next to impossible to cover every square inch when your swinging a small 8 or 10 inch coil, you have to concentrate very hard to not miss any area, and you have to go slow, with the 15 inch WOT coil you get a LOT more coverage, and it is a lot easier to not miss any areas between sweeps............When I use my Sov GT with the SEF 15"x18" Butterfly coil it is amazing how much coverage and depth it gets..

I understand your point. Basically any metal detector that has all Excalibur fixture has to be good (sensitivity, disc, pinpoint, thrH.,volume) My GTI2500 has all those fixture and it works good. My point is in base of many user that had compliant about it.

What I said about Florida is because I used to metal detecting there for a while. One day I went to Daytona beach and I came across with two issues:

1. Babies sharks wants to bite my legs
2. Too many nails because constructions staff, working in the building, used to launch them into the water.


To be honest, someday I would buy a used Excalibur in Ebay just to try a VLF underwater.

Arch

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Arch,

I would suggest if you buy, you try the treasure websites "for sale" boards before EBay, although I bought Excal that worked perfectly off of EBay. I sold it 18 months later for $75 less then what I paid for it, and that did not take in to consideration the finds I made with it. Excals hold their value for years....

Baby sharks are good eating fried up........

 

[ArmyDiver]

Thanks for the heads up everyone. I do live in Florida and I plan to use the detector mostly in the water but also the wet and dry sand. Lots of information and choices. Looks like my choice is going to be harder than I thought.

Again, thanks.

 

[architecad]

Arch,

I would suggest if you buy, you try the treasure websites "for sale" boards before EBay, although I bought Excal that worked perfectly off of EBay. I sold it 18 months later for $75 less then what I paid for it, and that did not take in to consideration the finds I made with it. Excals hold their value for years....

Baby sharks are good eating fried up........

Thanks

No baby sharks around my legs