Ace250 at the Beach

[aerograd]

Last week I went to Orange Beach, Alabama for a vacation with the wife and kids. I brought my Ace 250 along for the ride as well as the brand new sand scoop that I bought from a local dealer. My intent was to stick to the dry sand because of the problems with wet sand that I've heard about from other Ace250 owners.

I spent maybe 3-4 hours in total detecting... about 1-1.5 hours each morning. I hunted mainly around the beach lounges and umbrellas that are in front of the condo complex where we stayed. The first morning out I found $1.02 in clad and plenty of tabs, bottle caps, and other junk (including 2 tent stakes which came in handy later on to fix our own beach pavillion). I really liked the relative ease of digging in the beach sand as compared to the rocky and very hard dirt that we have here in North Alabama.

The next morning hunt I didn't find much... a dime and a few pennies and tons of junk.

The following night the ocean was rough and the high tide came up very far. It came up past all the lounges that the condos had in place. So, the sand was relatively wet when I went out detecting the next morning. I stuck to my plan and detected around the lounge chairs and umbrellas and tent pavillions. The Ace250 had no problems whatsoever with the sensitivity set at 1 bar from the max. I found about another $1.00 in clad plus a Mexican 10 new peso coin and a room key.

My question is would this sand be considered wet or dry? It certainly wasn't as wet as the sand being constantly hit by waves, but it was alot wetter and more densely packed than the completely dry sand that I had dug in the two previous days.

I kind of wish I had given the Ace250 a go in the really wet sand just for comparison purposes.

I didn't find any rings or tons of the money, but I was still happy considering it was my first beach hunting experience. I can't wait to get a chance to do it again. Next year, we're planning on a 7-10 day long trip to Hawaii (without the kids), so I am hopeful that I will be able to bring my detector(s) with me and spend a couple of hours each day hunting those beaches.

Thanks!

---Donny

 

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[doozis]

There are some youtube videos and a few others who say they
hunt wet sand with no problems with the Ace 250, just turn down the sensitivity.
I guess the sand is very different in different areas , so you might
want to give it a shot. It seems a few people have a terrible time
with the Ace 250 , but for me its been a great machine , and I plan to
use it for a long time.

Doozis

 

[SC_hunter]

I just got a few weeks ago from Myrtle Beach...Didn't find any jewelery but found quite a few coins. It did extremely well in the dry sand and not bad in the wet sand..it was just when you started in the edge of the water did it get a little noisy. Go to youtube and do a search on the name KINGPULLTAB. He has 2 vids on there that might interest you. HH and GL

 

[ivan salis]

psst try a bit less sen -- and you can hunt wet sand often --it it falses alot just drop the sen till it stops -- while not as good as the high dollar jobs you can hunt -- abit not as deep but --you run with what you got --- Ivan

 

[geckokid]

I use the ace 250 at the beach on wet sand in Delaware and Maryland. You need to turn the sensitivity down till it stops falsing. I was using 2 bars on the sensitivity. Dry sand I turned it up to 4 or 5 bars.

I have found several coins in the wet sand. with no problem. I dig all solid repeatable hit. It works.

Or another option is get a better machine. i.e. Tesoro Tiger Shark, Minelab excaliber ect they will work better than the Ace 250. It will cost more, but will go deeper in the wet sand.

 

[ivan salis]

be warned detecting in haiwii is vastly differant that the states --haiwii being mainly volcanic rock is rather high in minerals that can drive "preset" ground balance type machines (like a 250) nuts ---beeping all the time ---because the minerals in the ground tricks it into thinking it basically is a wall of metal ---lowering the sen and uping the disc MIGHT stabilize the machine but your hunt depth will be limited by that move --workible but limited --- this trick also works on wet sand too or other highly mineralized spots --that make the machine very unstable.

 

[Murph]

I have/had about a 100 hours in at the beaches on the southwest coast of FL with the ace 250. In the dry and depending on the angel the coin is laying you can expect up to 6 inches or so. In the wet like was said the sens has to come down and even then falsing can be a real aggravation and don't expect anything much over 4 inches. If your hunting densely populated beaches with a lot of recent drops with little or no competition you might do fairly well with the ace under these conditions.

For my beaches here in FL I am facing some stiff competition less in the way of recent drops and often sanded conditions. This can skunk an ace. I believe my last hunt would have been one of these skunks. Good targets were averaging 8 plus inches out of range for the ace especially in the wet.

Can you hunt a beach with an ace? Yes; I know because I did. Can you use a detector that is far more stable and punches deeper, vastly increasing your odds? Definitely; I did that too by switching to a minelab sov.

On the beach IMO it boils down to using the right tool. Given enough time you can drive nail with a pipe wrench with a limited amount of success (ace) but I would rather use a hammer (sov gt)

But that's just me, I could be wrong.