Advice about my Garrett Ace 250

[Gulfcapt25]

Hello everyone,
I just want to let everyone know I really like my new hobby, and I am curious if anyone has any helpfull advice using the Garrett Ace 250. I have only used it several times and I have found several coins. I want to get my detector set up to maximum capabilities for finding coins. I have tried the Coin Mode, and The Jewerly Mode. The coin mode tunes out pop tabs and gold I guess, and the jewerly mode is almost the same as the coin mode. Im just curious if anyone has any advice on the subject. John

 

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[Sandman]

Garrett has many fine books and the Garrett web site has a ton of info too. It is way to much info to give you here on this site.

 

[Murph]

All though a good one the ace 250 is an entry level machine with a three tone id. There are not a lot of subtleties you have to worry about and was likely garrets intention with this machine so people could just grab and go.

If your in the mood to dig use the jewelry setting. This will broaden the possibility of finding different size gold and costume jewelry. Silver jewelry will generally id somewhere in the coin range.

If your feeling a bit lazy or want to cover more ground use coin setting. Decent size gold rings will generally sound off as a nickel but so will some pull tabs. Expect to dig a fair amount of worthless items. This is true even with high dollar detectors.

 

[RUDY2003]

I have used my Ace 250 for about 6 months now and always run in Jewelry mode with about 4 bars sens. I find that silver comes up as nickle and dime here in Texas. It is different elsewhere, you just got to learn with digging a lot of pull tabs. I also notice that true nickles, dimes and silver give me a solid ring tone where pull tabs and gold have a slightly different sound even though the display shows pull tab or nickle or one step higher than nickle. Again, this may be different due to varing soil conditions.
I like the Jewelry mode over the coin mode for the reasons you stated, notching out pull tabs can lose some gold and even silver rings here.
Good luck with your quest.

Keep safe...

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Hello John,
I've been using my ACE for almost a year now. If you want in-depth advice, take a look at my profile and click on the "Show the last posts of this person" link. I've posted many tips and information. Regarding gold and the coin mode, you still have the nickel notch active and many rings will come in that way, so no, you are not blocking out gold altogether. In coin mode, your detector is pretty much set up to find just about anything that could be a coin. Your only job is to figure out what sensitivity setting to use in order to make the machine more effective for the situation. I start out at 4 bars. I've written a bit about the notch between penny and dime. Although this is part of the coin program, this notch brings in alot of tops and other unwanted garbage. You'll miss some tokens and I believe Indian Heads by eliminating it. I eliminate it because it's the sacrifice I have to deal with due to the amount of trash where I detect. A tip if you're coin shooting...... I call it the "Pin-pointer has the last say".....I'll basically place the coil right over where I think the coin is and press the pinpoint button. If the true whining sound is heard, then it might be a coin, if the machine hesitates and you get that low weird buzz.......it's more than likely garbage. This is accurate I'd say well over 90% of the time. It'll rat out a crushed can each and everytime. PM me or keep posting as things come up.

Best,
Ricardo

 

[DANGLANGLEY]

You are going to get to like that Ace 250 a lot. It will sound off at the smallest thing you can imagine. One thing I've noticed about the 250 is that sometimes it will say you have a target at 2 inches and you will dig 2 inches to find nothing. Dig another 2 inches and the same thing. When you detect a pretty large object even at a foot deep or more sometimes it will say 2 inches. Somehow it confuses the detector. After you use it a while you will recognize a difference when you run across one of those. I would not recommend (like the video does) to hunt in all metal mode until you learn what all of the tones mean. It will drive you crazy and you will be digging up nails at 8 inches or more. I used mine in the front yard last evening in all metal mode and the iron in the ground about drove me crazy. You would need a backhoe to dig every single item in all metal mode if you hunt around an old house like mine. It was built in 1922. This is just my opinion but I would start out in jewelry or coin mode and set the sensitivity as high as you can stand it and work the Ace real slow. If you work it fast you will be way past the target when it beeps and you will have to back up and try to relocate it. I hunt with it set at full sensitivity now most of the time but in some places it makes way too much racket and gives false signals that won't repeat when you go back over it. You can also bump the coil into a clump of grass or tree root and it will give a false signal. Sometimes when you get a quarter signal and if it is right on top of the ground you will have a little trouble pinpointing it. You can raise the coil up about 4 inches and pinpoint it pretty good. I do that on all quarter and dime signals that say 2 inches. try all advice you get because there's always someone who has found a better way to do it. The power line going to my house is buried and when I get anywhere close to it my Ace will go crazy. It also does that sometimes if I hunt directly under electrical lines on the poles. When you hunt beside a sidewalk that has re-bar in it you can hold it over the re-bar and discriminate it out and then you can get close to the sidewalk to hunt it. I've found a lot of coins that way. Best of luck to you. I hope I've said something that will be of help.

DANGLANGLEY

 

[Gulfcapt25]

I want to thank everyone for your great advice! I went out today at a local playground for about a hour, and found more coins in the same places I have checked yesterday. I really like the Ace 50, and I look forward to searching some older places.Thanks John

 

[hollowpointred]

my advice would be to read and re read your manual (even though the 250 is pretty straight forward) just get out and hunt with it as much as possible. i used to set mine up with only the last two notches on the left turned on. this way the machine only discriminates iron. i would dig all solid repeatable tones. you will dig a lot of trash this way but you wont miss much and you will learn that machine very well. good luck!