600-700 dollar budget

[rickypujol]

I currently have an ace 350 and im thinking about upgrading to another one. As you may see my budget is 600-700 dollar. I've been looking at the garrett AT pro i almost bought it but then i read about some guys having problems with it while detecting at the beach cos of the salt. They said it was no good at all nearby the water. So now I'm at chapeter 1 again choosing an metal detector hehe.

Ohh and also what is the difference between the at pro and gold? (i have looked it up but is it the coil that makes the difference or some software or hardware?)


cheers

 

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[cudamark]

If you're looking for a serious beach machine, look into getting a used Excalibur. You should be able to find one in that price range.

 

[Normsel]

Some people had some problems with the older AT Pro's but anyone I heard of was having trouble with an Ace 250 or 150 in or near salt water. I love my AT PRO and even though I have not used it in salt water I have used it under water. The only probles I have had with my AT is the operator meaning myself. Have had it for 3 months now and probably used it over 250 hours. The AT PRO is sealed from coil to head of it. It is suppposed be good under upto 10' of water totally submerged

Not sure of differences between AT PRO and AT GOLD but I think it is in software for tuning in on gold.

 

[bbells]

Don't know about the salt water, but I do know a lot about spray. Anytime you are near waves there is spray. And, if you need to set your unit down the ground may be wet. Plus, I like md when it is misting or lightly raining. The AT-Pro is good for that. I checked everything before going o the AT-Pro from my Ace 250. Checked all the brands. I was even willing to spend up to $400 more. I would suggest finding people on the forum who have the atpro and live in coastal areas and asking them about it. I got mine because it handles the high mineral content of the north shore of lake superior. Good luck!

 

[63bkpkr]

bbells,
Nice helpful reply! Dynamite comment about the spray and 'mist' along the sea shore, not a totally thought about wet possibility!!.................63bkpkr

 

[sierraipa]

I am expecting an AT Pro delivery this afternoon, and I plan to take it down to the beach this weekend. I will keep you posted on how things go. I am pretty new to the hobby, so my 2 cents may just be worth that grain of beach salt, but hey - it's one more data point!

Cheers!

 

[s.c.shooter]

I have an AT pro. It's a great machine but I wish I had gotten the At Gold. Only because I think it would be better on really small jewelry items. Have to admit though the pro has picked up on some small targets and deep coins.

 

[rickypujol]

Well I did order the at pro one actually. But I seems that you will have to have 2 different metal detectors if you want to go everywhere salt water land fresh water. Or I might be wrong?

Thanks for all the replies

 

[firemac]

ive used my at pro on the beach and in shallow salt water, you will need to manually set the ground balance to keep from falsing, and use it horizontal to the shoreline then rebalance as you get closer, but i really love my e-trac at the beach and I have gotten a excal ll for the salt water, good luck hunting

 

[George (MN)]

Some who've used it at the beach said they had to turn down the sensitivity to get rid of the falsing & maximum depth on coins was reduced to 7 or 8 inches. Of course a manual ground balance should be done first. Salt might be rejected by a bit of discrimination, too, but some fear a detector IDing a small piece of gold jewelry as iron. This detector has the most accuarate ID at depth I've seen. I use it in the STD mode & notch out trash when hunting for coins. It has never given me a wrong ID on a coin. I went over a dime (our smallest US coin) & it gave dime ID every time in 15-20 passes. Turned out the dime was down 7" (17.5 cm). Soil was moderately mineralized & dry.

 

[Dwight S]

Yes... you do need to turn down the sensitivity in the water to reduce the falsing, but the good news is the wet dirt doesn't seem to really reduce the detecting depth with the reduced sensitivity. It can still detect deeper than you'll really want to try and dig in the surf.

 

[lem49]

Most vlf machines fail in wet sand and salt, dry sand should be ok, if you really want to detect in seawater, your options are minelab excaliber,
Fisher cz21, these are multi frequency...but for the cost of a minelab, you can buy a tesoro sandshark pulse machine for the ocean, and a fisher
f5 for dry land and sand. Just my preferences, the Tesoro Vaquero is a good land machine as well.

 

[rickypujol]

What does a vfl machine mean?

 

[jefe43]

vfl=vlf which is Very Low Frequency

Very low frequency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[H-2 CHARLIE]

I think i need a MD that can nugget hunt very good and hunt the beach too .

 

[cudamark]

I haven't found one that will do both well.

 

[mlamp20412]

AT Gold has a little different operating frequency, better for gold. The AT Gold is not recommended by Garrett for salt beach hunting, the AT Pro is. Not really sure why, since a lot of times gold is in highly mineralized soil and you would think the AT gold would handle salt. I have read some pretty good stuff on the pro for salt beach hunting, but for a true salt beach machine, you need a PI machine (pulse induction). PI machines are great for handling salt beaches but are limited on discriminating out trash.

 

[ELITE]

The AT pro's owners manual explains tips on how to hunt in salt water.
1st= ground balance the detector.
2nd= If necessary reduce the sensitivity until the signals become stable.
3rd= Swing the search coil at a constant height.
4th= Swing the search coil parallel to the waters edge.

 

[302guy]

Just went to the beach today. Man it had been picked clean. Found a quarter at 12 inches. 3 beer bottle caps, an old knife, and a cell phone. The quarter was the only thing I found on the dry beach. It was falsing like mad. Every twitch, bump and movement...so I set it to run hot on pro zero and let her talk. Then dug every repeatable signal. And after awhile I could pretty much tell. It hits hard when there is something there.
On my way out a guy told me that he was surprised I found anything at all. Said he goes there all the time and hasn't had a signal since November, but kills it at another more popular spot. He goes there to practice and said he has to bring his own stuff.....I tthought he was after my quarter.
So I'm guessing I ned to spend more time GB'ng and turn the sens down some. plus I walked along the shore. I did notice it'd ring every time I crossed the tide mark when a wave rolled in.