I dont wanna throw in the towel but.......

[cjon455]

my bounty hunter IV sucks! i was at a 150 yr old county fairground site today and found only clad, there is NO way possible thats all thats there. Id like to get either a Garrett ace 250 or 350, Id really like the AT pro but unfortunately for me its champagne wishes and beer pockets

 

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[Diggit]

I wouldn't give up just YET. Fairgrounds are the most HAMMERED sites known.
EVERYBODY goes there, and with high end machines. Most of the time you'll be lucky to pull EVEN clad there.

And yes, it is PARTIALLY the machine, because anything LEFT is going to be deep. And unfortunately, that's not a deep ,machine.

If you want to hunt sites that everyone else does, you have to use a very good machine.

If you want to hunt with a (not trying to be insulting) lower end machine, you have to think outside of the box and get creative.

 

[ryaan21]

Don't give up man. I have been having a down year this year. Not one silver coin and I have the AT PRO. Its all in getting the coins under your coil. I would skip the 250 and 350 and go for a model from fisher or teknetics.

The fisher F2 is solid and the teknetics Delta seems to do really well also.

Contact Bart at Big Boys,

Metal Detector Sales Specializing in Minelab, Fisher, Teknetics and Garrett Detectors

He is really great to deal with and will hook you up right. He also has a Lay a way program. Check it out and keep your head up man.

 

[cjon455]

thanks for the tip Diggit, I want the better detector obviously but I just cant afford it yet. Any idea/opinions on the ace 250 or 350?

 

[Tom_in_CA]

reply

Well, yeah, your machine isn't considered the top of the line. It's more of the radio-shack caliber. But let me tell you: I can think of parks and fairgrounds where even if a newbie showed up with the latest greatest (explorer, or whatever) machine, he'd be hard-pressed to find silver. This is because they've been hammered to death, and there's simply no "4-star" gimmee easy silver/oldie signals left. You have to be one good hunter (able to eak out the whispers, and have lots of experience) to get more old coins out of some places. So pity the poor newbie who waltzes out to the obvious spots now, that have been hammered to death. The pro's often pass the clad (anything shallow) to hone in the deepies. Naturally this means masked stuff is still there, but ........ short of strip-mining, it's hard for you to get that head-start.

I remember back in the late 1970s, when I first started, even a beginner could go out to my town's "Central Park" and get silver on his first trip. Now however, it takes an pro to get any more wheaties or silver out there, because the park is now awash in zinc, tabs, foil, clad, etc.... Yet 25 to 30 yrs. ago, hundreds of silver coins came out of place.

Your best bet, to get the initial ear training, is not to go to obvious spots (which may have been hammered) but to get to some 1950s yards (which are old enough for silver, yet probably still virgin). Get some practice there at some easier deepies, and THEN go tackle the harder spots.

my bounty hunter IV sucks! i was at a 150 yr old county fairground site today and found only clad, there is NO way possible thats all thats there. Id like to get either a Garrett ace 250 or 350, Id really like the AT pro but unfortunately for me its champagne wishes and beer pockets

 

[cjon455]

Good advice Tom in CA, appreciate it

 

[Diggit]

thanks for the tip Diggit, I want the better detector obviously but I just cant afford it yet. Any idea/opinions on the ace 250 or 350?

I haven't used the 350, so I can't speak on that, but I found a Mercury dime on it's side at about 10" with a 250, so it will give better performance than the BH you are using.


For the money, it's VERY hard to beat.
As Ryaan21 said, there are a lot of better machines out there, but you may be limited on budget.
I would look around and compare the two he listed, the White's coinmaster and the Ace 250, they seem to all be pretty good machines.

 

[kshollywood]

Dont give up dude, and you dont have to own a $1,000 detector to find good stuff!! Maybe your detector isnt the deepest but it detects metal. Send me a pm and I'll help you in finding spots nobody knows about.

 

[Tom Bigbee]

Good words of wisdom Tom in CA!

 

[spartacus53]

cjon, If the Ace is what you are looking at, I'd go with the 250

Like Diggit, I haven't used a 350 either, but I have read about them and can tell you this

The only real noticeable difference between the 250 & the 350 is the $100 difference in cost

 

[dustytrails123]

cjon, If the Ace is what you are looking at, I'd go with the 250

Like Diggit, I haven't used a 350 either, but I have read about them and can tell you this

The only real noticeable difference between the 250 & the 350 is the $100 difference in cost

fasle....the dif is the dd coil if you had used both models you would know

 

[cjon455]

yes dustytrails, I like the DD coil on the 350, all the videos and reviews ive seen on it show it to be pretty damn good, I like the 250 but for the extra few bucks it can be the difference between finding the good stuff or not. I wish i didnt buy that BH, but my son and I were anxious and the only crap detector at gander mountain was the BH, we didnt wanna wait on an ebay order. Oh well, lesson learned, I only spent $100 on it so not a big loss

 

[dustytrails123]

Im sure that bounty hunter can find some silver if your in the right location that hasnt been picked out...its hard to find the places that hold the easy silver yet that arent raped over ...i hunt with a friend that uses the bounty hunter sharp shooter the price on that compares to the ace 350 but im not sure i would buy it after hunting with him i always seem to do better and his machine doesnt have a pinpoint mode so i tend to pinpoint targets for him and then borrow him my pro pointer...i did snipe a barber dime from where he had just checked but i think it comes down to the guy using the detecting ...ive had many more hours then him and swing very slow and very low and sometimes even in the picked out places i can manage to find a coin or 2 ....dont give up on the hunt just try to find a good location and your machine will find the goods but to go into a place picked over by high end machines is tough even for another high end machines

 

[Diggit]

i hunt with a friend that uses the bounty hunter sharp shooter the price on that compares to the ace 350 but im not sure i would buy it after hunting with him i always seem to do better and his machine doesnt have a pinpoint mode so i tend to pinpoint targets for him

Are you sure about that? I used to have one and I am POSITIVE that it had a pinpoint mode. (All Metal, and you just kept hitting it and it would "ratchet down" lessening sensitivity each time.)
Maybe he's just not using it right?

 

[dustytrails123]

Could be hes not using it right ....i looked at it the only settings were for changing discrim and sens....i couldnt find a pinpoint option on it either unless for some reason its not marked pinpoint ...i just googled the bounty hunter 2 it shows a dif face then the 1 he uses im not sure if its a older model or a shapr shooter 1...but either way the only thing he cant do is pinpoint targets well other then that the unit works alright i think it just comes down to the guy swinging it...he just doesnt swing slow enough or low enough and has a real short swing that covers just infront of him and he leaves gaps between each swing...after i pop'd out a 1914 barber from where he was just checking he was upset with the detector...i told him its not the detectors fault it cant swing itself right that he would have to work on his swing and slow it down...

 

[Diggit]

Could be hes not using it right ....i looked at it the only settings were for changing discrim and sens....i couldnt find a pinpoint option on it either unless for some reason its not marked pinpoint ...i just googled the bounty hunter 2 it shows a dif face then the 1 he uses im not sure if its a older model or a shapr shooter 1...but either way the only thing he cant do is pinpoint targets well other then that the unit works alright i think it just comes down to the guy swinging it...he just doesnt swing slow enough or low enough and has a real short swing that covers just infront of him and he leaves gaps between each swing...after i pop'd out a 1914 barber from where he was just checking he was upset with the detector...i told him its not the detectors fault it cant swing itself right that he would have to work on his swing and slow it down...

yeah, I did the same thing (looked it up) and mine was a "Sharpshooter 2", so that may be the reason. The sharpshooter 1 may have not had the pinpoint option.
I DO remember that it was marked "all metal" and not "pinpoint" though.
I found a LOT of clad with that thing.

Have your friend check and see if there is an "all metal" mode on that machine. That can be used to pinpoint.