Experienced Beach Hunters Only - My Equinox 800 sucks, What should I replace it with?

[Cutaplug]

Before all the EQ800 owners mob me please hear me out. I am a lot more mature than my title. I think... Anyway I have been silver hunting for many years and would consider myself one of the best. My primary silver seekers are the ctx and etrac. My last push to find a lot of silver netted me 136 silvers in less than 3 months using the CTX. I believe the key to being productive while metal detecting is detecting efficiently. By hunting efficiently what I mean is:

1. Ability to distinguish ferrous from non ferrous targets easily at any depth. This is accomplished using the FE numbers on CTX and Etrac. (detector and user)
2. Ability to define desired target and discriminate out unwanted targets with minimal loss of performance (depth, signal consistency, etc...). (detector)
3. Ability to identify targets using audio and visual information to “skip” unwanted targets. (detector provides info, user deciphers info)
4. Quickly determining if a site is productive or not and moving on quickly if it’s not. (user)

Using the above info I have had a lot of success and I’m content with my abilities to hunt on land. Now that my horn is tooted I could really use some help with beach hunting. I recently moved to Florida and would like to find gold. If life was simple I would be able to take my CTX and kill it on gold but life is never simple. The CTX is a great machine on silver but to say it kindly it sucks on gold. I understand why but no need to go into details on that.

Now I am on a mission to find the CTX equivalent for lower conductivity targets such as gold. When the Minelab EQ 800 was released I was super excited and optimistic. Now that I’ve used it for a while I am in search of a new machine. The main issue with the eq800 is that is cannot distinguish ferrous targets from non ferrous targets (ie rusty bottle caps). I know I know someone will chime in and say the following:
- You can change the hunting frequency and the numbers will jump. Yes this is true for a mode such as park 2 which works great on dry sand. Even using Park 2 I do not want to check every target by changing the frequency. That is extremely inefficient. Park 2 is also too unstable to get any real depth on wet sand. On wet salty sand running beach 1 you can’t change the frequency since it is stuck in multi. New and Deteriorated bottle caps will give a solid signal.
- You can pump the coil up and down and see the numbers jump. I’ve seen the Youtube video, try doing that on a 12 inch target. Any 12 inch target will be all over the place you say? My response - the CTX and Etrac can easily distinguish ferrous from non ferrous targets at maximum depth capability. It is possible.
- The signal is different. I have seen solid tones on bottle caps, soft tones, scratchy tones, short tones, long tones so they have no consistency. A steel bottle cap can read #3 all the way up to the high teens on the eq800. There is no discriminating them out.

Now that I’m done ranting I’d love to get input from experienced beach hunters about what machine is the most efficient for low conductivity targets such as gold on the beach. What I’m looking for:
1. Ability to distinguish non ferrous from ferrous easily.
2. Detector is higher frequency so good on lower conductivity targets. Not looking for too high or I will be digging tiny aluminum pieces. Would like to find a sweet spot where it will pick up small earrings but not pieces so tiny my pinpointer won't even find them.
3. Excellent depth capabilities. If it can reach the same depths of eq800 I would be happy with it.
4. Ability to set discrimination to eliminate zinc pennies and up. I’m not interested in digging silver or coins. Just looking for gold.

The CTX and Etrac are the best of the best for land hunting silver. Is there a detector that is equivalent for beach gold detecting?

 

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[ARC]

I might try a few techniques I have learned here next time I go bowling.

Love detecting bowling lanes.



PS... and on the serious side... even though some may laugh...

I use my X2 in cow pastures... woods... roads... it don't matter... she will kick no matter where.

Beach detector... yep... there too.

 

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[Truth]

Another 800

 

[smokeythecat]

Hey Cutaplug! I subscribed to your newsletter. I was sorry to see you end it. Good luck on your future endeavours.

I have an Excal II and do not dig rusty bottlecaps often. The machine does not seem to react to them. I don't know why all these Excal users are being so coy about it. Unless things are different with salt water bottlecaps and freshwater bottlecaps (where I dig) I do not find bottlecaps. I run a minimal amount of descrimination around 2 or 3 and they don't show up. I haven't found a ton of gold with the rather heavily hit swimming holes, but it bangs on nickels and pulltabs and small aluminum which should all match gold.

Now, a lot of guys (from what I read) hunt the beaches using pinpoint mode and treat the Excal almost like a PI machine where they dig everything that beeps. So they might still be digging bottlecaps in that method.

Everyone else that is enjoying talking down to him, maybe provide some actual input to his very clear question. Is there a machine you use on the beach that doesn't pick up rusty bottlecaps as much?

My XP Deus will "hear" a bottlecap, but I know what they are in advance and don't dig them. Sometimes on a very clean beach I will dig a couple just to make sure that's what they are, and yes, every time, that's what they are. So I don't have any issues with bottlecaps. So there is a machine on a salt beach that will let you know you have a bottlecap versus something good.

 

[cudamark]

All the Minelab FBS machines will I.D. a bottlecap easily. The Equinox does pretty good too if you turn up the iron bias enough. The caps covered in foil are still going to fool you though.

 

[Xraywolf]

Fact is, you will never be near 100% sure the target is a bottlecap regardless of brand or machine unless and until you dig it up.

 

[smokeythecat]

Cudamark, those gold foil lined caps stink. You got that right. I think a lot of machine preference comes down to the user.

 

[Irishgoldhound]

Gold can sound like junk and junk can sound like gold. Many times I’ve been fooled, or surprised. I’ve dug many bottle caps with the my AT pro and I can call it most of the time if it’s gonna be a cap or not. One thing good about the Pro is most caps ring up in the 80’s, high 70’s so I know it’s most likely not gold as most gold usually rings up 50’s to mid/ high 60’s unless the gold is bigger and thicker. Our clad coin here in Canada can sound and ring up like bottle caps especially quarters, so I dig them all when I’m beach hunting. Now for my Xp Orx it’s a little harder to tell.

 

[cudamark]

Fact is, you will never be near 100% sure the target is a bottlecap regardless of brand or machine unless and until you dig it up.

I do when it comes to the Etrac/CTX. When it says it's a bottle cap, it is, and nothing else. Occasionally, I'll dig an iffy signal that doesn't read bottle cap and it is one, but, even that is rare. When I first started using the Etrac, I dug every signal for months....thousands of signals. I never once had a bottle cap signal that was anything else but a bottle cap.

 

[Xraywolf]

I do when it comes to the Etrac/CTX. When it says it's a bottle cap, it is, and nothing else. Occasionally, I'll dig an iffy signal that doesn't read bottle cap and it is one, but, even that is rare. When I first started using the Etrac, I dug every signal for months....thousands of signals. I never once had a bottle cap signal that was anything else but a bottle cap.

Of course there are likely 5,000 bottlecaps and pulltabs out there for every gold ring, when an item rings up in the typical gold range the great odds are its not gold. You have no way of knowing if the ones you passed up were in fact bottlecaps or rings. I have dug 1,000's too and keep digging them, I'd advise others to do the same ,, But if you are pressed for time, just too annoyed digging junk or have physical issues that prevent you from bending down often then yeah, going with your gut feeling may not be a bad idea. [I know, its a bit more that a gut feeling, I have called out rings many times before I dug them with my lowly Ace 400, and also have said/thought "probably a bottle cap" at least 100's of times] I've been surprised both ways though, which makes me not want to rely on an electronic best guess as SOP.

 

[fieldboy se va]

I sent a message did you get it ?

 

[cudamark]

Of course there are likely 5,000 bottlecaps and pulltabs out there for every gold ring, when an item rings up in the typical gold range the great odds are its not gold. You have no way of knowing if the ones you passed up were in fact bottlecaps or rings. I have dug 1,000's too and keep digging them, I'd advise others to do the same ,, But if you are pressed for time, just too annoyed digging junk or have physical issues that prevent you from bending down often then yeah, going with your gut feeling may not be a bad idea. [I know, its a bit more that a gut feeling, I have called out rings many times before I dug them with my lowly Ace 400, and also have said/thought "probably a bottle cap" at least 100's of times] I've been surprised both ways though, which makes me not want to rely on an electronic best guess as SOP.

I did a ton of testing with gold items of all sorts, even mixed with other metals, and none came anywhere near what a bottle cap reads.

 

[xr7ator]

Ever dig a nice coin a few inches deeper and directly under a bottle cap?