Sea Hunter II - Infinium LS - Surf PRO PI - Which is best @ SALT water beach ?

[Buff4]

Hello everyone. Getting ready to lay down some cash and I'm in dire need of some experianced advise. Budget minded (but not cheap) what are your opinions on these machines for heavy mineralized New England beaches, both dry sand and in the water to say chest deep. I am aware that a PI on the dry beach instead of a VLF will have me digging trash forever, but I can live with that. My choices in order are as follows. 1) Garrett Sea Hunter II - 2) Garrett Infinium LS - 3) White's Surf Pro PI - 4) Minelab Excalibur 1000 or II (if I find a used one). I like the idea of auto ground balancing, but if I had to I could hopefully live without. I also like the idea of multi frequency. SH II (22 freq), Infinium (96 freq). THANKS FOR YOUR TIME AND INPUT.

 

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[ron lord]

I own a sea hunter MK 2, An Infinium LS and have own a excal 1000.My Infinium Ls with all it's coil is for sale,The excal 1000 I sold to buy my Sea Hunter MK2,and that is what I use now . The Infinium, I have is good in areas with lots of Black sand .I have a hearing problem and can't hear the high tones.The sea hunter as only one tone no problem. I hope this helps you. Can't help you on the Surf pro , but all these detectors are PI detectors. most of the older hunter have gone back to the PI detectors because they go much deeper.

 

[Buff4]

Thanks for the info Ron. I also have some hearing loss with the higher frequencies. How is it on the beach itself ?

 

[ron lord]

Nice and go's very DEEP.

 

[petersra]

I have a whites dual field and there is a guy I hunt with who used the Sea Hunter. He consistantly finds thing deeper than my Whites DF. However, I understand the whites DF goes deeper and is more sensative on gold than the Surf PI Pro.

 

[Buff4]

I thought the Pro PI was a DF ?

 

[Buff4]

Hey Ron, how would you rate the SH II on gold ?
P.S. thanks for your input.

 

[stevemc]

The dual field is a much improved unit over the PI pro.

 

[ron lord]

I find Post ear ring this size at about 6 " ( o ) I just bought a Stealth S3i scoop with the 1/4" holes because I find alot of small things.

 

[GibH]

I've owned the PI Pro and MK II, I have to give the edge to the MK II as well. I haven't been in the surf in quite a while, but this year I'm trying the Infinium.

Cost wise, the only thing that comes close to bang for the buck as the MK II is a Tesoro Sand Shark. The Sand Shark is an awesome PI, but the MK II's I've had spank it in the depth department.

The DetectorPro Pulse is about a hundred more. It is also very good, but battery life is horrible and not as stable in the surf as either the MK II and Sand Shark.

Just my opinions on what I've found to be true on our particular beaches in northwest Florida.

 

[snooksion]

infinium is better than both those machines put together.but if your hearing is going.you will need something louder.

 

[Buff4]

Thanks for the last 2 replies guys, I'm still tring to decide. Been spending hours upon hours doing research on all models. I will also be interested in maybe getting Doc's Treasure screamer amp, and also doing a Peltor type headphone upgrade to offset the hearing loss. I'm pretty descent at electronics, and have all the needed equiptment for the Peltor project.
Once again, thank you all for taking the time to reply. This is one reason I became a charter member.... to support this website and not just leach off of it.
Detectors I'm considering.... White's surf pro DF (orange seals), Sand shark, MK II, Infinium LS, and the Excall.

 

[stevemc]

I have 2 White's Surfmaster PIs, one has a black O ring, the first one I bought new maybe 16-17 years ago, and one with an orange O ring that I bought used about 12-13 years ago. I have never had one problem with either and have taken them both diving deeper than was recommended. I have an Excal which has black O rings and it is a 1994 model. I have taken it all apart and lubed all the O rings-a lot of them, and put them all back, still working fine. And an old Garretts Seahunter XL 200 and it has a black O ring and it is 20 years old and never leaked. And I leave them in the car after metal detecting for weeks at a time, only in the house to get new batteries or charge, in other words, they are used a lot and often not washed with freshwater for a long time.. I dont know how true the thing about the black O ring being worse than the orange. When I do take out the batteries, I often take out the O ring and clean it, as it should be. And the groove and seating areas. I also take just a dab of silicone grease and run it through my fingers, and put it back in and carefully clamp it evenly down. I always look and see if the O ring is fully seated, it always has. I have many under water cameras and video camera housings, and never had a problem and just about all have black O rings. My under water scooter has several large O rings, all but 1 are black. All of the replacement O rings in the spare kit are black for the DPV.

 

[stpauli914]

Get an Excal 2. That is unless you are hunting the same beaches as me, then get any one of the others you mentioned

Aaron

 

[Buff4]

Thank you for the laugh and your opinion Aaron. I'm sure there's plenty to go around.
Have a great day!

 

[stevemc]

I am sure you have already been told the Seahunter II and the Infinium are both PIs, not multi frequency like the Excal and Soverign-which is called BBS, Broad Band Spectrum. You said in your first post that they were multi freqs, which they arent. Unless you mean they can have the pulse/delay rate turned up or down, which any PI can do.

 

[Buff4]

Thanks for the reply Steve. Looks like I'm going with the CZ-21 as it should be fairly stable in the salt water, and I'll be able to do some dry land hunting when the beaches are crowded out.
Thank you for your time.

 

[stevemc]

You could dry land hunt with any of these MDs. But yes the CZ-21 is in the regular Fisher CZ family, so if you had one of those, you would already know how it works. Good choice.

 

[stevemc]

Just have to get used to the sounds and that will take a while. Do some practice with different things, gold rings, silver ring, fake rings, neck chains, coins of all types, nails, screws, smashed aluminum wine and liqour bottle caps, the glass beer and cola bottle caps, aluminum cans, hair pins, the 40+ year old type of pull tabs-dont worry there are millions of them out there-get some and fold the tab over the ring, and leave some flat, newer type pull tabs that people still pull off and throw in the water, and balls of foil. Bury these and mark them with paper saying what they are. Get used to the different sounds. Trust me gold rings sound like a lot of those things. Gold rings can sound like any of those things. Get used to iron sound.

 

[Buff4]

Steve, your a true asset to this website and the detecting community and I truely value your unquestionable experiance. Thank you once again.