CZ-21 Sensitivity On Salt Water Beaches

limegoldconvertible68

Full Member
Mar 18, 2009
228
14
Illiniois
Detector(s) used
Fisher F70 with 11"DD coil, CZ-21 with 10" coil, Fisher 1265X
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Never worked a salt water beach before so I am sure this is a stupid newbie question but why is the recommended sensitivity setting on the CZ-21 only at "3"? Being an exclusive land hunter before this its always been my habit of running my machines as hot as possible. Is salt water really so much different? What kind of things should a rookie salt water beach hunter be aware of? Thanks!
 

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tiggar

Full Member
Sep 26, 2011
127
1
South Jersey
Detector(s) used
Minelab Sovereign GT
Primary Interest:
Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
I ran my CZ between 8 & 10 on the beach wet or dry....

hh
 

stevemc

Bronze Member
Feb 12, 2005
2,121
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Sarasota, FL
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Whites Surfmaster PI Pro and Whites Surfmaster PI, Minelab Excal NY blue sword. 2 White's Dual field pi, Garrett sea hunter pi II (but don't use it for obvious reasons) 5' x 3 1/2' coil underwater Pi
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Any machine you have to adjust it to where it wont false or make a lot of noise. Saltwater is a real problem as it is very conductive. Turn up your sens, if you need to. Just a normal thing.
 

Sandman

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Aug 6, 2005
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In Michigan now.
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Excal 1000, Excal II, Sovereign GT, CZ-20, Tiger Shark, Tejon, GTI 1500, Surfmaster Pulse, CZ6a, DFX, AT PRO, Fisher 1235, Surf PI Pro, 1280-X, many more because I enjoy learning them. New Garrett Ca
Primary Interest:
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Salt water at beaches varies in its concentrations and then there is black sand which is also magnetic. The Black sand varies too from place to place and many times is seen on the surface near the water line. A setting of 3 is safe but you should run it as warm as you like without falsing like Steve says.
 

ivan salis

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Feb 5, 2007
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callahan,fl
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bluntly put -- minerals * dissolved in the salt water , they screw up the machine --it "sees" the dissolved minerals as a "wall" of metal -- beep ,beep, beep --so you have to tune down it's sensivity level a bit --until it no longer picks up the "background" minerals -- since differant areas have differant amounts of minerals in the salt water ( much like differant areas of dry land does )-- differant beach areas have differant mineral amounts too --(some are much worse than others )-- so you need to adjust to the local conditions * run as much as you can while still being "stable)")-- note ----high emf areas --near powerlines and such also might require downward "adjustments" in sensitivty levels as well. :thumbsup:
 

dewcon4414

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Mar 22, 2006
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Gulf Coast, Fl
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Salt water does have a lot of minerals another reason it works so well for a home made electrolysis. I agree with Sandman and Steve..... but that being said i have an Xcal that rarely falses. It will false some if you run parallel to the beach along the cut and thats running it as high or low as i want. Ive been at this for a day or two and normally if you OVER RUN your machine you start loosing depth. There is a point where you pick up deeper trash or minerals causing coil shut down. So guys whats the answer in my case? keep it high or run it like i do at 7 in the water?

Dew
 

biggmike

Hero Member
May 27, 2010
750
724
Florida
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CZ7A Pro / CZ21 / F75 LTD
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All beaches are different. 3 is probably safe at most all beaches so that may be why 3 is the setting that is circled on the unit. Run it as high as possible. In Florida I run mine at between 7 - 8 in most cases.
 

MBbeachrat

Sr. Member
Apr 1, 2011
361
79
Melbourne Beach and Bethany Beach-- Snow Bird
Detector(s) used
CZ 21, Whites DF PI, Excalibur II, CTX 3030
According to Felix at Fisher you begin lose a lot of depth below 7.5 According to Daniel at Fisher at 4.5 you will only hit a coin down around 4". If you run in all metal you can run a lot hotter then you can in discriminate. In all metal you need to learn what the sound difference is from the water action,the wet sand and metal. I can run CZ 21 w/ 8" coil at 8 on the northeast(Md,De) and 9 in the southeast (Central Florida). In rough surf I need to go down to 6. My new CZ 21 w/ 10" coil is having problems and the guys at Fisher are working on it. Great service I might ad, but I think you can run the 8" coil much hotter then the 10" coil. Not sure what coil you are using.
 

Got Treasure ?

Jr. Member
Dec 17, 2011
32
0
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CZ-21 is great- I use It all the time -Ive picked up Items at 2feet but not allways- copper penneys no problem at 12 inches . Gold is a little bit tricky but ,it does fantastic- as soon as I learn how to post pics -I will show u the proof. The excalibor is great too and I like It better- found two gold this week and I know I will find more when I go back out- you just have to learn the Machine
 

EZrider

Sr. Member
Mar 10, 2008
409
83
Georgia
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XP ORX
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Hunted with OldBeachnut this weekend. We did alot of testing with the machines we had CZ21, his moded excall and Synthnuts AT Pro. All on video. Targets were gold rings at a measured 12, 13 and 15 inches in the wet slope. Suprising results to say the least.

I was anywhere between 7-9 depending on how hot i wanted to run for an area. I dont mind a little falseing as you can tell the diffrence on a good target. The biggest thing with the CZ is getting a good ground balance. At times i couldent get it even with it run all the way down to 1. In that case leave it at 1.
 

OBN

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Dec 30, 2008
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Hunted with OldBeachnut this weekend. We did alot of testing with the machines we had CZ21, his moded excall and Synthnuts AT Pro. All on video. Targets were gold rings at a measured 12, 13 and 15 inches in the wet slope. Suprising results to say the least.

I was anywhere between 7-9 depending on how hot i wanted to run for an area. I don't mind a little falseing as you can tell the difference on a good target. The biggest thing with the CZ is getting a good ground balance. At times i couldn't get it even with it run all the way down to 1. In that case leave it at 1.

Got to spend some quality time testing, fine tuning between the Excalibur with Doc's Amp and a Seasoned CZ 20/21 hunter (EZ), using 3 different sizes of Gold wedding bands, amazingly both machines could get the 12 and 13 but only the CZ could get a good solid hit on the Lg Gold at 15 inch's (*) which after looking at my results from a earlier test in OC Maryland I seen that only the Infinium LS could hit the same gold band at 14. So Ground Balancing and getting to know your machine can set that CZ ahead of many.

(*) more info on settings which make a difference, and for what type of hunting is required .. this is in Discriminate set at (0), all is on video, with audio of both machines..And Ocean City New Jersey....

From Last winter 2010
Just got back from Oc, took the gang down to see how each would compare to each other, strengths, weaknesses...............this is what I got

Size 13 Mans 14k, 7.5 grams ............16 inch's........none.......................14 inch's.... Garrett Infinium PI, Amped excal...rest came in between 10 & 12 inch's
Size 6 1.5 gram 10k women's ring......14 inch's....... none.........................6 inch's......Garrett Sea Hunter PI, rest of the pack started hitting at 4 inch's
My inexperience with my CZ20 8 inch on this test put it right with the others on the same ring.....So experiment. learn your machine..........
 

Jun 28, 2008
191
35
Florida
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Minelab Excalibur II 10", Excalibur Sword 8", Sovereign XS2a Pro, Equinox 800, Equinox 900
Primary Interest:
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All CZs are not the same

There is a lot of variation in performance between different CZ-20/21s. I've seen some that will false like crazy in salt water if the sensitivity is set anything above 5 and others that can be cranked all the way up to 10 and be totally stable. In mineralized areas it is very important to set the ground balance correctly or it will not ID properly. Deep targets can sometimes ID incorrectly even with the machine balanced properly. So it's a good idea to dig deep iron signals or at least check them very carefully.
 

EZrider

Sr. Member
Mar 10, 2008
409
83
Georgia
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XP ORX
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Re: All CZs are not the same

John (west central FL) said:
There is a lot of variation in performance between different CZ-20/21s. I've seen some that will false like crazy in salt water if the sensitivity is set anything above 5 and others that can be cranked all the way up to 10 and be totally stable. In mineralized areas it is very important to set the ground balance correctly or it will not ID properly. Deep targets can sometimes ID incorrectly even with the machine balanced properly. So it's a good idea to dig deep iron signals or at least check them very carefully.

John, The beaches in south NJ are totaly diffrent than im used to. You are right about the falsing. Mine chatted away and couldn't give it more GB as it was on 1. The beaches we hunted were covered in heavy black magnetic sand. I think all machines would have a problem there and did. You can bet if im in a cleaner area i will be diging the deep "just out of range" iron tones.
 

CASPER-2

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Jan 3, 2012
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I like my CZ21's so much - i own 3
Felix is the man
like a lot have said every beach is different and some
machine are different - I have one of my CZ21's that sounds and acts differently than the other
2 - sound is different - tunes different
but I love them all the same
I hunt in all metal to get maximum depth - I will nothc to zero if I want to check
for the tone ID
Be aware from newbies out there - and some veterans
you can lose substanstial depth by running in notch descrim.
i met a guy few year sback - he had just about one of every make of water
mahcine out there - he saw me coming off from a beach during a storm
wind drove me off - he said "didn't get much with that - did ya?"
and was talking to me like I just got into the hobby
I actually had gotten a handful of greenies down deep in the wet sand
I was getting faint signals in all metal - when i notched to check - went silent
I would dig down 6 inches or more then recheck and tone ID would work
I was picking coins out 1 foot plus at this spot
He said he rarely ever used his CZ - I asked how he ran it - he said he left it on 4 or 5
I told him - "you're missing a lot"
I told him to try my way and he would be surprised
like they say - got to learn your machine
good luck
 

EZrider

Sr. Member
Mar 10, 2008
409
83
Georgia
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XP ORX
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Casper, my CZ hits deeper in Disc than in Autotune. Like i said we did some head to head depth testing over the weekend. Once the target "ring in this case" was at a measured 15 inches. The only way to get it to hit was in Disc 0. Auto tune did nothing nor would it pin point. This was with modrate settings "nothing wide open".
 

Can Slaw

Sr. Member
Nov 20, 2007
461
47
So Gulf Coast, FL
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Excalibur, CZ-21 Sov. GT, Sea Hunter MK II, CZ-6a, Troy X5, MXT, Ace 250
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Turn your sensitivity up until your machine falses, then back it off to where it runs smooth. You are now set for the minerals and the beach you are hunting. There is no set sensitivity number for all beaches.
 

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