Found the limitations of my Ace 350 last night

[flgliderpilot]

I'm not trashing my Ace 350, it's been nothing but good to me, but last night I definitely found it's limitations. I took my daughter metal detecting, and told her I would also hide a prize for her...and if she could find it she could keep it. We were at a section of beach I hadn't hunted before and I dropped a tungsten ring in the hard packed damp sand near a pier and lightly pressed it in with my foot, basically on the surface.

I figured, no problem, I know where it is, and if she doesn't find it, my 350 will find it.

I took a few steps away and started sweeping my detector... I got nothing but false hits in every direction. Ahh crap mineralized sand. I turned the sensitivity down really low, discriminated out the false iron hit, and still, getting falsing all across the board! Coin hits, iron hits, tab hits, it was ridiculous. Nothing was repeatable. I went back to find the ring I had just walked away from and couldn't find it!

I tried using only pinpoint mode and keeping the coil at a distance where I could faintly hear a tone... this should have found it... but nothing. I tried digging the "sort of" repeatable signals and found nothing.
I searched this small area for an hour, dug about 20 holes going nowhere and then got rained out. I went back later and searched for another hour. There was noone else around us so I'm sure it didn't get picked up.

I even skimmed the sand with my handheld pinpointer... grrrrr.

Time for an upgrade. Wet mineralized sand without a ground balance option is a nightmare.

If you live near Redington Beach, Fl give me a shout and I'll tell you where to search lol.

 

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[cudamark]

Borrow somebody's Minelab, you'll find it easy with that.

 

[Fletch88]

Single freq VLF's detectors WITH ground balance really aren't an option either for wet salty sand or water.
Maybe I am reding between the lines too much but I have read this post in a couple different spots and the part about if just had a machine with ground balance stands out. I don't want you to be disappointed if you buy an ATP or other single freq VLF and it didn't hit this same ring at 4+ inches in wet salt.

 

[flgliderpilot]

Single freq VLF's detectors WITH ground balance really aren't an option either for wet salty sand or water.
Maybe I am reding between the lines too much but I have read this post in a couple different spots and the part about if just had a machine with ground balance stands out. I don't want you to be disappointed if you buy an ATP or other single freq VLF and it didn't hit this same ring at 4+ inches in wet salt.

Thanks for mentioning that, and I understand what you are saying.

I did actually just buy an AT Pro, but I got it very cheaply and I could not pass it up as an upgrade from my 350.

I don't expect it to find this ring with it though... especially now that the tide has gone in and out 4 or 5 times

 

[streetshark1966]

jet some body with a Tesoro sand shark, excal or any other salt water detector they will find it