BHID 300 in all metal vs Excalibur in all metal

[Detector Wars]

The BHID 300 against any Excalibur with a 10" coil in all metal mode (the different models of Excalibur should generally be the same in AM mode).

How do these two brands compare in all metal mode?

[Adrian SS]

Excal will slaughter the BHID on salt beaches in depth and sensitivity to coin and ring size targets given that the BHID 300 has a 12 inch coil.
The BHID will not handle black sand as efficiently as the xcal. The BHID is a good light weight well balanced smooth running machine that will track from the dry sand into the water and waves without much of a murmur and would keep most people happy if serious detection depth is not your concern. I find it to be a pleasant, reliable hassel free detector.
On land the Excal can get a bit heavy but in the water is not a problem

Just an opinion based on my own BHID

[Sandman]

The Excal will blast the BHID 300 out of the water in All Metal and Disc modes. It needs no GB and has no trouble moving from wet to dry sand and the coil doesn't want to float in the water. Only thing deeper is a PI.

[Adrian SS]

I didn't mention the BDHI Disc mode in my previous reply but I have to agree with Sandman in that the BDHI Disc mode is not brilliant. The detector will give a positive ID on a target when it is close to the coil, say within 6 inches for a coin size target even though the machine may detect the coin at twice that distance.
I have found that the Iron ID feature seldom gives an incorrect iron ID, unless the target is deep in which case you will get a yellow light and low tone but if the target is iron the ID will change to red as you remove soil and get the coil closer to the target. This is a bit of a pain because you tend to do a fair bit of unnecessary digging on deep iron.
The concentric coil doesn't help much either because this type of coil only responds to a target when it is inside the diameter of the coil whereas with DD coil iron targets give a much broader signal and will be detected up to a coil diam beyond the actual coil outer rim and this helps to ID an iron target from a non ferrous one; The non ferrous give a sharp response very close to the coil. A bit of practice is required to hear these different signal responses between Concentric and Double D coils.

The Disc mode of the Excal is very accurate almost to the depth of the target and detects as deep if not deeper in the Disc mode as it does in All Met.

[Treasure_Hunter]

Never owned the BHID 300, but I did on a BHID, while it is a good water detector in of itself, when you compare it to the Excal it falls far short....

I have never seen any of my excals or sov gts fail to identify a piece of iron as iron as soon as I swept over it, but I have had it tell me there was a gold ring beside a piece of iron The gold ring and the tiny piece of iron was recovered in the same scoop... I had a solid null from one direction, and a good gold signal from a sweep 90 degrees off the original sweep...

If I hace a BHID 300 and an Excal in my van at the beach the BHID would never get used, not because it is a bad detector perse, but because the excal is so much better...

[Detector Wars]

Well, the verdict's out. 8)

Thanks guys.

[Adrian SS]

Don't get me wrong; I am not saying the BHID is no good, it is a fine metal detector for salt beach work. It has fast response which allows for a fairly fast sweep and is sensitive to small pieces of jewelery and runs very very smooth on most beaches. The All Met mode is capable of good depth and will satisfy a lot of the "Dig It All" hunters.
The one thing you have to be carefull of with this machine is that you Overlap your sweeps by at least 50% because the coil has a very narrow search pattern.

If you want to do a fast search (faster than with a Sov or Excal)over a beach looking for recently lost items The BHID is a good choice and you will be much less tired and your arms less sore at the end of the day.