recommendations for beach detector

The-Bone · Nov 21, 2007

Hi all,
Would like your thoughts on which of the big 5 (fisher,whites,garrett,tesoro,minelab) beach style detectors to get. I would be doing a mix of fresh water and saltwater hunting. I have just about ruled out the minelab as the price is too prohibitive. As for the others, i am looking for some real world experience and opinions. Also my budget is not bottomless. A used machine would be just fine if it was in good shape. I have not done any 'in the water' hunting before but have been itching to for quite some time. I also am not married to any particular brand.
thanks
John

MoTwister · Nov 21, 2007

Fishers Aquanaut is good but you loose some depth in salt water, Whites PI is good but you will dig iron. Whites ID water machine I heard is good, able to knock out iron but will not do well in salt water, but good on the beach. Not sure about the other brands sorry. You can get any of the above for under 500 bucks on eBay usually.

Murph · Nov 22, 2007

The minelab excal is by far the best machine for water hunting IMO. I can certainly understand trying to keep cost down. I did the same thing. Since its winter and the waters are cold any ways I would suggest you just keep setting some money aside until spring and you should be able to afford the excal. If you get into the hobby for the long term my guess is you will end up with an excal and whatever you spent money on before that actually increasing your cost.

The excals also seem to hold there value and resale vary well if you decide water hunting is not your thing.

Sandman · Nov 22, 2007

Murph said it well. I would steer clear of Fishers because of customer service troubles with the new owners. The Fisher 1280 is a one tone for everything and not expecially deep, reacts to saltwater and black sand. The fine CZ20 is not made anymore and I don't think they repair them.

Tesoro Tiger Shark is a fine detector and my back up to my Excal's.

Whites Beach Hunter is fine, except order it with the weighted coil. The stock BH has a floating coil and you must fight to hold it down in the water.

Guys that bought the Titan have sent them back, same with the Cobra's.

PI detectors are deep, but love to have you dig huge deep holes for a piece of iron. Sand Shark, Infinium LS, J.W. Fishers, Whites Surf Pro are all PI detectors.

The Excal is definitely the best water detector out there right now. It quickly pays for itself in finds.

The-Bone · Nov 22, 2007

Thanks for the info all!!! Has anyone actually used the beach hunter? the reviews i've read on it all seem to say that it is not very well suited for detecting in saltwater surf. Claim it falses an extreme amount of time. As far as the excal, everyone seems to love it but i can't justify the $$$$ to buy one...even used they are running well over $600

Treasure_Hunter · Nov 22, 2007

I used mine for about 8 months before I got my Excal. The floating coil was not a problem for me, you can always add a small sand bag to help weigh it down, I never did, I just got use to it.

My problem with it was the battery door design. I found it a poor design and mine leaked even though I was very careful with it. Whites repaired it under warranty, but I just was never comfortable with it after it leaked, even though it never leaked again, I still traded it in on my Sov GT.

If you can't swing the cost of a new one, if it was me, I would keep my eye open for a good used Excal on one of the "for sale" boards, or Ebay. I bought two used, both worked upon arrival and I got a good deal on both.

One of mine came off of the Treasure Net for sale board, the other from Ebay. I have seen several used for sale for a good price, but since I already have 2 Excals, I haven't really be interested.

Good luck

Murph · Nov 23, 2007

If your a DIY type bone the sovereigns can be pretty reliably waterproofed. Only problem here is that any failure in your waterproofing will likely be catastrophic for the sov especially in salt water.

The tone ID with the excals and the sovereign IMO will beat the pants off the competition which are generally three tone machines.

JOE(USA) · Nov 23, 2007

John,

If you get a PI machine, you are going to dig deep and a lot of the targets are going to be iron. Also because you are going to be new to water hunting I suggest you go with a machine that's easy to operate. I use the Tesoro tiger shark and am also a dealer. If I can help you further please PM me. Joe

The-Bone · Nov 23, 2007

thanks all for the help...i believe that i have it narrowed down to either a sea hunter or tiger shark...one question though:
both these units are advertised as having some sort of discrimination capabilities....won't this do away with iron falsing and a lot of pull tabs?
john

Treasure_Hunter · Nov 23, 2007

If you try to desc out the pull tabs you are also taking a good chance to descriminate out some gold rings as well. If you want the gold and silver, your going to be digging pull tabs and bottle caps. Many of them sound so close to gold and silver that you should dig to be sure.