hello everyone i just purchased my first metal detector a garrett ace 250,it works good iv ran every possible test on it yet when i go out to hunt i can never dig up what it says is there,its like im just digging holes is this a common noobie problem ?it will give me a strong clear reading on something and yet a hole is dug with nothing to be found is it me or the machine plz help me if ya can, thanks everyone
I can certainly understand your frustration. I have owned and used several different detectors over the years and my latest is also an ACE 250. I found it very hard to get used to this one. My old (and so far favorite) one was a white's Classic II and i ran that one into the ground. I'll try to list a few pointers that helped me out as i was learning this machine.
It's a pretty decent machine overall and it will work as designed, but like you are experiencing, pinpointing with it can be frustratingly difficult, especially for a beginner. There are times out in the field when i still find myself chasing ghosts. What is happening is you are not pinpointing your target correctly and thus digging slightly off target and finding nothing. Believe me the target is there in the ground you're just not hitting it because you are having a difficult time with the machine telling you precisely where it is.
With a little research online you will find that lots of people have this same issue with this detector. First off don't give up on it. You will have to "learn" the machine and only time out in the field will accomplish that. This is true with any metal detector you buy. All metal detectors are complex tools and are only as good as the person using them so be patient and it will work for you and it will get easier.
you need to understand the shape of the electric field the coil produces (a cone shape above and below the coil) and on the ACE 250 you have an oval coil not a round one. So the very bottom of that invisible field is a small line (about an inch long or so) not a dot because your coil is oval not round.
This makes pinpointing a tad bit harder because while it's fairly easy to pinpoint your target side to side you 'll find that the machine sounds off twice as long while crossing the target up and down when you are drawing that X to pinpoint. Once you get used to this you will adapt. a few tricks you can use that might help are :
1) actually re position yourself 90 degrees to the target after you sweep it side to side for one line of your X and sweep side to side again for the other half of your X.
2) Intentionally lift your coil up 3-6" off the ground (but still keep it level) and pinpoint with it again - you should notice the target's area has grown much smaller now because a much smaller cross section of that invisible cone is now intersecting with the target.
3) the coil on your machine (if you have the same one I do) is a See through framework with a cute little half moon notch that
presumably marks the center of the coil. (just in front of where the coil attaches to the pole from the detector). This feature of the coil's design naturally draws the eye when you are looking trough it while trying decide where your target is . I have found that the actual center of the coil's field is just slightly in front of that notch (about 3/4 - 1 inch)
not in the notch! You can test this out by practicing pinpointing a target laying in plain sight. Pinpoint it by sound just as you would a target in the ground and when you stop mentally note it's position in relation to the notch in the coil's framework i was referring to. A buried target will be in that same spot.
You need to be aware that the ACE 250 is also slightly more prone to picking up objects in the ground with the "Halo" affect. All metal detectors do this but I've found that the 250 is slightly more sensitive to it because once you dig for a small object and disturb the soil around it you can destroy the halo while never seeing your target and then when you re-sweep the hole suddenly your target is much smaller and harder to pinpoint than before. Or you may have been detecting a piece of trash that had a halo that increased it's signal just into your machines "desirable" range but once the halo is gone the detector might be discriminating out the target completely. I've had this happen with small pieces of aluminum in certain types of soil.
Let me know if you need more info on this and I'll try to elaborate for you.
Another quirk that I've found with this machine that i have never seen on any other detector is when you press the pinpoint button on your control panel
you must be off of your target or many times it won't work! I don't know if perhaps its just my machine that does this or if all the 250's do but if i am still over the target and hold the pinpoint button then 90% of the time nothing will sound. Test this out with your detector. I know on mine i have to be off the target completely before holding down the pinpoint button.
However - another odd feature is that once i am on a target while holding the pinpoint button (and it's sounding off normally) i can then shrink down the field by 1/2 by hitting then holding the button again. I've been at that one a while and still haven't mastered how to do it precisely enough in the field to make it work well.
The pinpoint button on your control panel eliminates all discrimination too ! This is important to know if you hunt in high trash areas like i do. You may have been hunting with the disc on and enjoying relative quiet and found a good target then hit the pinpoint button and suddenly there are targets all around you ! or worse your good target is suddenly three times larger than it was before !
This is because now your detector is picking up those tiny pieces of trash. Just be patient and focus on the sounds your machine is making. A nail or piece of foil will sound different than a coin when you are pinpointing. If you suddenly find three separate targets in one spot where there was only one good one before you will have to pinpoint the good target by the type sound it makes.
I hope you stick with this wonderful hobby. Let me know if these pointers help you out or if you have any more questions. Hope to see you post some cool finds soon !
None of my MD buddies use a Garrett so I've had to puzzle it out on my own for the last year or so. Can you also shrink the size of the field by quickly re-tapping the pinpoint button on yours?
