Backup/spare detector...Which one????

[stpauli914]

OK, so here is my relatively simple question....

I have a new Excalibur II and am looking for a second detector to compliment it but also do a few of the following things:

Has to be good on the beach.

I need it to be good for my mom or dad to use along with me, or a friend for that matter who wants to come detecting with me but doesn't have a detector.

Most of the beaches I hunt are kept fairly trash free by all the competition so I am leaning towards a PI unit.

Will a PI ignore waves and current? I know that is one of the downfalls of my Excal, it will false in the waves a bit and I have heard it loses some depth in faster current.

I bought another Excal(with a WOT) but changed my mind because I don't think it would be good for my parents to swing(too awkward).

I am leaning toward the Sand Shark and everyone has said what a good detector it is.....

Thanks,
Aaron

 

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[goodmore]

Headhunter PI w/ an 8 inch coil. As light as it gets. The 8 inch coil is easy to swing. It pinpoints very easy. And you can add an 11 inch coil when you want to take it out. Just as powerful or darn close to the Whites Dual Field. It will put a whoopin on that Excalibur. I know. I sold my Excalibur last week.

 

[Can Slaw]

Give one a try. If you don't like it you can always sell it. As much as everybody wants to beach hunt now, there is no shortage of buyer for used equipment.

 

[Terry Soloman]

Headhunter PI w/ an 8 inch coil. As light as it gets. The 8 inch coil is easy to swing. It pinpoints very easy. And you can add an 11 inch coil when you want to take it out. Just as powerful or darn close to the Whites Dual Field. It will put a whoopin on that Excalibur. I know. I sold my Excalibur last week.

May I ask, as a beach newbie, is the headhunter the one with the electronics and adjustments in and on the headphones?

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

OK, so here is my relatively simple question....

I have a new Excalibur II and am looking for a second detector to compliment it but also do a few of the following things:

Has to be good on the beach.

I need it to be good for my mom or dad to use along with me, or a friend for that matter who wants to come detecting with me but doesn't have a detector.

Most of the beaches I hunt are kept fairly trash free by all the competition so I am leaning towards a PI unit.

Will a PI ignore waves and current? I know that is one of the downfalls of my Excal, it will false in the waves a bit and I have heard it loses some depth in faster current.

I bought another Excal(with a WOT) but changed my mind because I don't think it would be good for my parents to swing(too awkward).

I am leaning toward the Sand Shark and everyone has said what a good detector it is.....

Thanks,
Aaron

If you want something very light and easy to swing go with the headhunter.

As far as I know most detectors will false in shallow surf....
I don't know where you heard the excal is losing depth due to current....
Do you have straight shafts on your excals, it makes swinging them a lot easier. I can hunt in the water from dawn to dusk with my excals with no problems, I use straight shafts and a harness on them.........Of course I am only 62....

I do not believe a headhunter is out hunting an Excal, especially my customized Excals with the WOTS and SEF 12"x15" Butterfly coils on them.. I waste no time digging deep holes for iron with my excals...

 

[stevemc]

I am right there with Treasure Hunter, a PI might be deeper, but you will find everything shallow and deep, and you will still find iron. Deep isnt everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them? You can pass up iron and be digging at least just non-ferrous stuff, not wasting your time on iron. I know you already have an Excal, so you know this. I have several PIs, and that is the one thing that I got an Excal for-no iron. A PI will find sparkler wires a foot and half deep. Try working a public beach after 4th of July with a PI. Every kid throws his burnt up sparkler in the water. A PI will false right where the waves wash up on shore. An Excal in the surf where the waves wash up will too. They all do. Current, no. When a big wave rolls over your coil, you will get some noise, because of the amount of salt water changes, and it ground balances it out. Same when you are diving with one, it will squeal when you have the coil up in the water, because it reads the salt. Not until the coil is square and close to the surface of the sand, will it be good. I have used TRs, lots of different PIs and Excals and they all have those traits.

 

[stpauli914]

Thank you all very much! Maybe I need to look at another excalibur. I know I love my new one!

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Thank you all very much! Maybe I need to look at another excalibur. I know I love my new one!

The backup to my Excal is another Excal.....

 

[birdman]

Excal with straight shaft and hip mounted ,you can swing all day.

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

I am thinking a White's BHID great entry level mid price detector.Easy to operate 3 light 3 tones. Waterproof when it says iron it always is when it says coin it is unless its a silver piece of jewerly, when it hits on jewerly its most of the time right but some times its a coin on edge or almost out of range. I used one for about 100 hrs last season while my excal was being fixed. I really enjoyed the operation and it found gold. I am going to buy one for wife and friends also. Really give a look see. I think your making a mistake if you hand a PI to a novice. But I suspect you want a PI and are using this as a reason to buy one! Nothing wrong with stacking things in your favor. I do it too!

 

[DewGuru]

Deep isnt everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them?

I find super deep rings religiously. Thats the benefit of the PI. Get what others cant.

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

Deep isn't everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them?

I find super deep rings religiously. That's the benefit of the PI. Get what others cant.

I thought this post was for a backup detector that his mother could use, or an inexperience friend to use. Ya I guess you can hand mom an PI and let her dig till she passes out from digging a targets at 18 inches! I must have missed something. I thing PI's are great machines in the hands of a hunter that has a clue!

 

[DewGuru]

Deep isn't everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them?

I find super deep rings religiously. That's the benefit of the PI. Get what others cant.

I thought this post was for a backup detector that his mother could use, or an inexperience friend to use. Ya I guess you can hand mom an PI and let her dig till she passes out from digging a targets at 18 inches! I must have missed something. I thing PI's are great machines in the hands of a hunter that has a clue!

Matching someone up with a machine that makes continual outter space sounds isn't the way to go, IMHO.

 

[stpauli914]

Everyone here makes valid points. Couple things to clear up... my folks are only in their early 60's and in very good shape. Also, the beaches here on the central gulf coast are for the most part fairly clean(partly due to dewguru) If I get a pi, I can always give my folks the excalibur to use and I could swing the pi. I like the idea of having a pi to compliment tje excalibur. In a couple of Clives books he mentions losing depth with the excalibur when working in stronger current/wave action to answer treasures question. Thanks and keep the thoughts and ideas coming! I am still leaning sand shark....

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Deep isn't everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them?

I find super deep rings religiously. That's the benefit of the PI. Get what others cant.

I thought this post was for a backup detector that his mother could use, or an inexperience friend to use. Ya I guess you can hand mom an PI and let her dig till she passes out from digging a targets at 18 inches! I must have missed something. I thing PI's are great machines in the hands of a hunter that has a clue!

Matching someone up with a machine that makes continual outter space sounds isn't the way to go, IMHO.

LOL, outter space sounds.......... Excal is easy to learn, if you get a solid signal in two different directions dig it. With a PI your digging everything, INCLUDING IRON, with the Excal your digging no iron.....

I have beach hunted with 3 different people who use or used PI's, they would all be digging targets and deep holes at the beach and ask me to check the target, I scanned the target, told them it was iron, they would continue to dig the target to see for sure and never once was the Excal wrong......

Personally I would rather dig outter space sounds and know they are not iron, than to dig deep holes for tiny pieces of crab traps, fish hooks, bobby pins, nails, screws, etc.....

 

[goodmore]

I do dig some trash with the PI. But I only hunt in the water with it. There is less trash there. Combine that with my ability to separate out some of the junk by sound I really don't dig that much. The HH PI is a wonderful detector. Just the headphones and a coil on a shaft. I use a Sovereign in the wet and dry sand.

 

[stevemc]

St pauli, I have heard from 2 people who own Sand Sharks, and they both say they find gold good. If you want a gold finding PI, the Sand Shark come highly regarded as does the Whites Dual Field, but its coil is nuetrally bouyant, so it is lighter than most true diving detector coils, and might try to float up. I have a White's surfmaster PI pro with the diving coil and it is negative bouyancy and does not float at all, easy to keep down. I have mine on a belt, just the coil on the shaft. The dual field has a 12 inch coil, instead of the 9 1/2" that the surfmasters have. I think the better PIs are Tesoro Sand Shark, and the White's Dual Field, maybe the White's surfmaster PI Pro with diving coil too. I havent tried the Headhunter PI, I dont know how its gold jewelry finding is. That is if you are still set on a PI.

 

[Wayne P]

Best beach detector IMHO, is the Sovereign. Find a used one and get a hipmount setup. Hipmount makes it light for your parents and set-up and use is not to hard to learn...

 

[Craig-PI]

A good PI hunter is not going to dig much more trash than a VLF user does.... A PI hunter will find the gold a VLF hunter can't even hear...

I don't dig sparkler wires, nails, bobbiepins, big iron... because I took the time to learn my PI... I read somewhere else in this thread about the coil... it floats a little ... I swing from the S in the shaft and have no issues whats so ever.. I'll run nothing but PI in the water, in the wet sand I run my GT...

I am right there with Treasure Hunter, a PI might be deeper, but you will find everything shallow and deep, and you will still find iron. Deep isnt everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them? You can pass up iron and be digging at least just non-ferrous stuff, not wasting your time on iron. I know you already have an Excal, so you know this. I have several PIs, and that is the one thing that I got an Excal for-no iron. A PI will find sparkler wires a foot and half deep. Try working a public beach after 4th of July with a PI. Every kid throws his burnt up sparkler in the water. A PI will false right where the waves wash up on shore. An Excal in the surf where the waves wash up will too. They all do. Current, no. When a big wave rolls over your coil, you will get some noise, because of the amount of salt water changes, and it ground balances it out. Same when you are diving with one, it will squeal when you have the coil up in the water, because it reads the salt. Not until the coil is square and close to the surface of the sand, will it be good. I have used TRs, lots of different PIs and Excals and they all have those traits.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I am right there with Treasure Hunter, a PI might be deeper, but you will find everything shallow and deep, and you will still find iron. Deep isnt everything, because you wont find a gold jewelry ring deep with any of them, so why go deep when you are looking for them? You can pass up iron and be digging at least just non-ferrous stuff, not wasting your time on iron. I know you already have an Excal, so you know this. I have several PIs, and that is the one thing that I got an Excal for-no iron. A PI will find sparkler wires a foot and half deep. Try working a public beach after 4th of July with a PI. Every kid throws his burnt up sparkler in the water. A PI will false right where the waves wash up on shore. An Excal in the surf where the waves wash up will too. They all do. Current, no. When a big wave rolls over your coil, you will get some noise, because of the amount of salt water changes, and it ground balances it out. Same when you are diving with one, it will squeal when you have the coil up in the water, because it reads the salt. Not until the coil is square and close to the surface of the sand, will it be good. I have used TRs, lots of different PIs and Excals and they all have those traits.

A good PI hunter is not going to dig much more trash than a VLF user does.... A PI hunter will find the gold a VLF hunter can't even hear...

I don't dig sparkler wires, nails, bobbiepins, big iron... because I took the time to learn my PI... I read somewhere else in this thread about the coil... it floats a little ... I swing from the S in the shaft and have no issues whats so ever.. I'll run nothing but PI in the water, in the wet sand I run my GT...

Look at the amount of iron trash found on the beach that is posted by the average PI hunters, I dig no iron at all.......My Excal with the 15" WOT coil goes deep, real deep, as does my Excal with the SEF 12"x15" Butterfly coil..... If I am just hunting the wet sand I run my Sov GT with the SEF 15"x18" Butterfly coil......