Ace 250 conclusions

[Murph]

Well have about 75 hours in with the ace 250 hunting mostly dry sand at beaches and a few tot lot/parks.

I like it. For a low end machine it works. Does it work any better than other low end machines. Probably not. I had a radio shack bounty hunter that did a similar if not same job as the 250 and cost 60 dollars less. Its undoubtedly luck or lack there of but I found more jewelry with the bounty hunter than I have with the ace so far.

My final verdict as far as disc settings. All notched out up to nickel. Pull tab notched out. Nothing after that notched out. My reasoning. The ace does a good job at calling a pull tab a pull tab. 90 percent of solid hits here will be a pull tab. Virtually all he gold jewelry I could get my hands on including vary thin gold wedding bands would id at a nickel as will some "high quality" pull tabs. IMO the possibility of missing gold with the pull tab notched out is vary low. Probably around 10 percent and it will be a vary small piece. The trade off here is you will spend less time digging pull tabs and cover more ground. This detector is unlikely to make any sound on a thin gold chains so IMO you ain't gonna miss much with the pull tab disced out.

I found that most costume jewelry and other odd items will sound off ID just to the right of the notched out pull tab and tend to jump around a bit. I have found earring backs 4 inches down in this range.

Wet sand? Pop down the sens a notch or two and it should be "huntable".

Trashy areas use the coin setting. In trashy areas with a lot of foil you are just going to have to dig a lot. Same with foil on a beach there will just be less of it. Foil and large aluminum cans are just going to be trash items your going to end up digging. Silver will be unmistakable in the coin range and 90 percent of gold will sound off as a nickel.

The likely reason I made better initial finds with the cheaper detecor was I had less ability to mess around with the settings. Modes were all metal, coin, coind and jewelry. There was no notch discrimination and I suspect the coin and jewelry mode was less wide than the ace. IMO this meant more swing and less fidling around with the settings.



So there you have it. HTHs

 

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[Krovas]

I've noticed that my 250 also calls pull-tabs (and ferrous objects) with a high degree of accuracy, but I dig 'em all anyway. Perhaps it's merely my n00b-ishness.

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Murph, could you tell us which Bounty Hunter machine you were comparing the 250 to?

 

[dahut]

'Bout sums it up.

Nearly all of what you said could apply to nearly any detector, but you nailed the Ace pretty soundly. A good detector at the price, it doesn't live up to some of the hype I've heard. Some folks would have you believe it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

What it IS a lot of "features" in a $200 package - exactly what Charles Garrett has been promising for years. He finally did it, just as he promised. But it is a basic model, any way you shake it.

Now, take the same features and expand on them, add a good bit more options and you get what starts to be a damn good all around instrument...the Garrett GTP1350. I tell a lot of people to bypass the 250 and go straight for the 1350. Here's what Charles himself said on this score...

(sic) "... after all the research and question asking is over, and you are ready to buy - come up with another $100 and buy a detector that is a little better...You'll have a superior instrument, and youll soon be glad you spent the extra money. Believe me!"

He's right.

 

[khouse]

Instead of $100.00 it should read $350.00 because that's the difference between the two. Since my 250 is in the waterproof box I'm still looking hard at the 1350.

 

[dahut]

Of course youre talking NEW, Kenny. You oughta know by now I rarely buy any detector at new prices...

 

[khouse]

I stand corrected. Do you think Charles is going to unveil a new Christmas unit?

 

[dahut]

If you mean a totally new model, probably not.
There are the rumors of a relic unit that surface from time to time and I think we'll see the 1350/1500/2500 Plus sometime - with the new chipset, billed as an "improved" model.

But Bill, who has his finger on the Garrett pulse has nuttin and it is getting late in the year. By now, they have nomrally started to leak a few hints to prime us suckers...er, devoted fans.