Anyone have a Garrett Ace 150?..if so, what are your thoughts?

[Silvestri]

Hello Everybody,


does anyone have any opinions or comments about the low-cost the Garrett Ace 150?.....

 

[Michigan Badger]

I love posts like this so can't resist posting again.

If you read up on any of the models made by the top manufactures, what you'll find is one person will praise the machine and another will curse it.

It's really funny...how could a detector be great and awful at the same time?

Answer: It usually (not always) depends on the metal attitude of the operator toward the machine in question.

Some people can not accept a low-cost detector by any maker simply because low cost (in their thinking) means poor performance. These people enter into the experience with the preconceived notion that the detector can't perform. And so it doesn't perform.

I've been at this hobby for 40 years and I still think 50% of the game is mental.

 

[Silvestri]

Hmmm...Badger...I agree...(though i am a greenie)...agreeing greenies aside...I think that like other pursuits...metal detecting (as far as land and shallows goes) is likely to be no different.I agree with the 50% mental assessment..it seems like the best stuff is found in the least likely places and in the most likely the rest of the time...sometimes....still with me?...good..hang on..there's more.....$160.00 is a big investment for me at the moment...though it only got me what, by many, is considered a "cheap" detector. However, time spent hunting seems to be a big factor as well as where one hunts...and other factors....this is of course precluding any so...therefore allow me to present my following calculations based on a formula using a composition factor of 33.3% absurdity, 33.3% fact and 33.3%fun:

base chance of finding good items with:

el cheapo m.d.- 25%
el media packo m.d.(middle of the pack)-35%
el mucho moneda m.d.(expensive detector) 45%

+/-

IQ of detectorist in question

+/-

quality of detecting site: (on a scale of 1 to 10) x oo.1

+/-

hours spent on given site (i.e., 1.0,1.8,3.8.etc.)

+/-

time deducted due to distractions by curious public, irate property owners, police,unleashed rabid dogs,feral wildlife, irate wife/girlfriend(boyfriend?), etc,etc.

= a fairly reliable numerical percentage of success!!!

 

[Michigan Badger]

I need to add this true story.

Back in 1983 or 84 I spotted a guy working one of MY parks!!! But I wasn't worried because I had already hunted that park out.

I parked the car and did the thing all we THers hate...I walked up and started talking to him.

I told him about all my finds and he at that time told me what he had found that very day. In fact he was digging an old coin when I walked up! As I recall he had a 192? Standing quarter, Merc, and Buffalo nickle.

And, this took the cake...he was using a detector vastly inferior to my machine! It was made by the same company as mine, but it was an older, lower grade model.

SUM: This guy really knew his machine and I didn't really know my detectors all that well.

That experience taught me a lesson.

Give someone who is super serious a Ace 150 or 250 and he'll probably outdo 90% of the non-serious hunters using $1,000 machines.

 

[ringfinder]

Just a quick reply on the statement that was made to turn up the sensitivity
and you will find deeper objects. This is not really true for the ACE 250, that is
in my case it isn't. I don't use much sensitivity. I usually set it around the
middle and this seems to work for me. I have hunted in trashy areas and yes it is
hard to hunt. With the ACE 250, if you swing the coil in one direction and get a beep
and then in the return direction you don't hear anything, it usually means it's iron.
I will say that when I dig deeper items, I use a SunRay Probe to help me pinpoint
the item. Thats cause this darn machine will really go deep in wet soil.

Myself, I like to hunt areas that aren't that trashy, I love to relic hunt and that
means working farm fields. I guess I just like finding older items, more than beer cans,
pull tabs and newer money. I have found my share of old coins in towns and playgrounds,
but time and time again the good stuff is where you find it and thats out where others don't
venture. HH, Ringfinder

 

[nuggetshooter323]

The good things that everybody is saying about the Ace 250 are undoubtably true when your in worked farm land, or any other non-minerlized soil. But, the minerlized soil here in the Colorado gold country renders the Ace 250 totally useless. The dealer in Golden, CO that I traded my 250 to for my new Tesoro Vaquero, said that park hunters in his area love the 150/250's. I'm glad somebody loves it. :P

 

[allen]

the 250 is superior over the 150.....