Narrowed Down to

[Rusted Nail]

ACE 250 , Whites New CoinMaster , Fisher F2
I'm getting closer and can't choose but I've managed to get it down to 3 :P. Anyone had issues with any of these ? I think any of these will beat the pants off my old DeepSeeker

[sniffer]

the ace 250 is going to beat the pants off the other 2, easily.

[Keppy]

My vote is for the Ace 250.

[kando]

Yes that Ace 250 is the one i would get out of that list of yours. So my vote is the Ace 250.

[hawk-run]

I would also say that in that price range for any detector the Ace 250 is the winner.

[EddieR]

I guess I'll be the oddball....the Coinmaster is a great machine. Good depth, accurate ID, and great balance. The F2 is awesome. A VERY fast response and recovery. Great depth and VERY light.

I just didn't care for the 250. (just my opinion)

[vaquero44]

out of this three sorry coinmaster all the way, the bell tone is a nuisenceand anoying, just my 2 cents in there

[Boilermaker27]

You didn't do much narrowing in my opinion.

The ACE250 may beat the pants off the other detectors you mention, but believe me, there are numerous machines that are going to beat the pants off the ACE250.

I saw my first one a few months ago and it looked like a toy to me. The color really makes it look child like.

However, if money is an issue then maybe the ACE250 is one of the better cheap detectors, but don't expect to find what the more expensive machines don't find.

[Keppy]

You might be smart to listen to Lucky Larry......... He knows were detectors will work best at...

[Rusted Nail]

Thanks for the replies, I was leaning towards the F2 which I can get with small search coil as package deal, The Coinmaster is a close second and looks like it can use same coils as Prism III, Just think there is too much hype about the Ace and coils seem to be priced a little high F/ Ace. Things are thawing around here and I've been digging some stuff with the old Garrett Deepseeker.

LL : Yes there are areas around here that are highly mineralized but it is mostly in the Badlands and those areas are mostly off limits to detecting, BLM and Forest Service land or Res.

Found out I'm not the only one around here that detects, went to beach area this weekend , thought I was going to cash in, detected a while and wondered is this thing on, had managed to dig half a dozen pennies , three dimes and 6 or 8 quarters while checking out the old Garrett, Then I noticed all the holes someone dug and left bottle caps and tabs next to them. It was in the sand but who ever it was did not bother to fill their holes, my heart sunk when I learned I might have some competition, Maybe I should try to get a top of line in order to compete

HH
Rusted Nail

[sniffer]

top of the line doesn't mean you'll get all the good stuff, getting up earlier will help though LOL

[Rusted Nail]

That's my thoughts, exactly , the area is close to work and I'll have to hit it early Monday morning, maybe I'll meet up with him or her and we can hunt half and half .

[ivan salis]

its a bit more ($279) but I do like the teknetics delta 4000 * with its numbers type display -- the alpha 2000 is in the price range of the listed ones $199 however it does not have a numbers display but rather several slots --like the ace 250 has 8 slots into which finds are sorted --thus pulltabs and gold rings both come in the tabs area -- with the delta 4000 -- tabs come in at the number 60 often --with gold rings coming in at 58 or 67 depending upon purity of % gold and what its alloyed with. --while this can not cut out all pulltabs --it does help cut down on digging junk some what , thus making your hunting more productive and fun.

I strongly recommend getting holding on a bit and the better ($279) machine the delta 4000 * for this reason.

[ivan salis]

larry while not the same as being able to truely ground balance -- heres a tip if things are a bit tooo hot / machine going nuts ---beep beep beep--- falsing a lot from ground minerals or over head wires , ect.--use the "poor mans" preset type model "ground balance" method-- lower your power /sensitivty levels slightly till they smooth out -- this will normally work in all but the worse cases -- you might wind up losing a bit of depth but you can hunt at least .

[ivan salis]

understand and agree --yes having the ability to "know your soil" and wiether it is "sweet or sour" -- low minerals or high --is indeed a major plus ( thus having the ability to "manually ground balance" for areas outside the "norm" limits of most preset units is very desirible)- --of course a display helps to tweak it just right)-- since a machine thats properly "ground balanced" will always get the maximum depth you can get --since you are then pushing all the signal the ground can accept from your machine.

the tip I gave was for folks who have lower end "fixed" non adustible preset units -- their only real recourse is to lower sen /power levels to make it less "touchy" so it will run correctly -- not the greatest thing in the world but its a trade off -- a bit less depth but now its stable and usible.

[Rusted Nail]

That's why I love this place , Thanks for the tips , My old Garrett Deepseeker is thirty years old and has VLF manual ground balance, TR Discrimination or I can turn on and search Automatic tuning, This thing rocks in my opinion 8), I'm looking at a second unit because this thing is a little on the heavy side . Ground is still a little frozen around here but what little detecting I have managed with this old beast I really see no need for any other detector . So far I have managed some real treasures . Thanks to all , I'm leaning towards the F2 but need to research the Whites a little closer, I think it is much like the Prism III. I do have one question, basically the display on these new detectors that show a penny , nickel, dime , nail, can, what ever is no more than a needle or meter and is really not much use to me as i"m digging everything . AM I correct?

[ivan salis]

if your a dig it all type person -- then displays are fairly useless to you * if thats the case -- get yourself a a tracker IV and just ignore the needle dial on it and go by the 3 tones it makes --low = iron --mid tone gold /aluminum ---high tone copper /silver

[Rusted Nail]

Well, I ordered up a Whites Coinmaster and I'm sure I'll be happy with it, When I get to be a Pro I'll up grade. Big Brown will be pulling in here Wednesday the 7th

[Rusted Nail]

Well , I have to admit that I did not believe that the old Garretts could miss much , but I had spent 3 days cleaning up a small beach at the lake and swore it was clean, so went in thinking I was not going to pull anything out of there, Low and behold in all metal with the new coinmaster it sounded like a machine gun. Started pulling bobby pins and paper clips, tiny pieces of foil I could hardly see. Now 1/2 the beach is spotless . Got tired of digging so I discriminated out tabs and iron, pulled 2 dimes , 2 clad quarters and a nickel from the second half the beach, Many signals that I did not dig. Going to be a great summer keeping this beach clean. Decided to hit the picnic area and discriminated out all but quarters and halves. found 3 clad quarters. Spent an hour out today same spot with all discriminated but quarters and halves pulled 4 clad quarters. It is a little tricky pin pointing but noticed the spider coil has two rings and it chimes at each ring side to side, and front to back, Going to take a while to clean this park up but somebody has to do it.

[sniffer]

have fun with the new machine