Saltwater detector

[piratebooty]

Hi all, I know there are discussions about water detectors, but I wanted your opinion about the tesoro sand shark in particular. Please don't mention the minelab Excalibur as it's out of budget. I'm trying to find a somewhat inexpensive detector for SALTWATER and the SS seems to fit the bill and has the famous lifetime warranty. Was looking at the ATP but see that a lot of people have issues with saltwater with it. I have an Ace350 and a Whites classic III, but want to start water detecting the beaches. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[pat-tekker-cat]

My next back-up detector will be a sand shark. It's a jam up little machine!
I never used the ATP, so I got no comparison between the 2.
I actually found one of my best men's 14k ring using a friends SS. Huge and diamonds!

 

[Terry Soloman]

Can't go wrong with the Tesoro Sand Shark. It is a Winner!!!

 

[DrJoePrime]

I'm very partial to my Dual Field. It's amazing here in Southern California. Great depth and very sensitive to tiny gold...smallest gold ring was under 1/2 gram.. that's tiny!

I also have a Sand Shark with an 8" coil. Also a very good detector for the salt water. One of my original criteria was to signal on a sub 2 gram gold ring and it does that well. I have not checked it for anything smaller. Depth wise the nod goes to the Dual Field since it has the 12" coil. Some say it has equal depth to the Dual Field so perhaps there's some setting knowledge that I'm lacking on the Sand Shark ( I used it about 6 months steady). I learned my PI skills on another White's before that and understand the White's "language'" a bit better. The Sand Shark .. still .. is a top notch machine!

 

[piratebooty]

Thanks Dr. Joe, that's some good info. I'm really leaning towards the SS, so a the info I get on it sure helps!

 

[R.Danneskjold]

I have a SS, ATPro and Excal, can't go wrong with the SS for sure and If I could only have one for salt it would NOT be the ATPro. SS is a great machine without a doubt.

 

[travelerga]

I have a sand shark, this is number 2 for me. Have taken it to tybee twice, so far have found 15 tent pegs, range from 1 inch to 14inchs deep. a kennedy bi. a nickel 4 pennies. 20 nails, and 82 bobby pins several safety pins and a handful of FOD. total 5 hours. love it. we have a poor beach so I don't expect much.

 

[Jolly Mon]

Don't neglect to look at the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. It is in your price range, performs every bit as well coil for coil as the Sand Shark (if not better), and has several important features the Sand Shark lacks:

The Sea Hunter allows you to switch coils. The Sand Shark is hardwired. You can go 8 inch or 10 x 14 inch with the Sea Hunter. The difference in size between a round 10 inch coil and a 10 x 14 might not seem like much, but on a large beach, the difference in sand coverage is enormous. The Sea Hunter coils also offer much less water resistance than the SS coils. Take a look at the pics of the two detectors to see what I mean.

The Sea Hunter's battery compartment is completely separated from the rest of the detector's electronics. Unimportant? Have you ever tried to switch out batteries on a stormy winter beach hunt on a Sand Shark? You have to open the entire machine and to remove the battery pack, exposing the machine's internal components to moisture and sand infiltration. Not good.

The Sea Hunter's standard search mode is almost a true no motion mode. This is a big advantage when trying to pin point in the surf or underwater. The Sand Shark requires a significant amount more coil motion in order to continue detecting. In other words, it detunes over the target faster. This might not sound important, but when you are struggling to stay upright in chest deep water trying to pin point a target...it will be.

The Sand Shark has hard wired headphones. The fact that the coil and headphones are hardwired makes the machine awkward to store and transport...and also tends to place the detector's wires under more stress which can contribute to wire fatigue and detector failure.

Quite a number of professional salvage outfits---including the Mel Fisher group---utilize the Sea Hunter as their primary underwater detector. I am not putting the Sand Shark down, but I have never seen or heard of a professional outfit that uses the Sand Shark.

Which brings us to the Sand Shark's "life-time warranty"

Is it really all it is cracked up to be?

If you use a detector a great deal over time, the electronic components will begin to degrade. The performance of the machine will decline, even though the detector is still operable. Tesoro will NOT replace the unit when this occurs. Trust me on this one. I have an old Sand Shark and all three of the round coils manufactured for it. I used to use it a lot and it is just not nearly as deep as it used to be. It seriously struggles to find a nickel beyond the 6 to 7 inch range in the wet salt. I have sent it to Tesoro and they say that it: "tests to specs" and that is that. They will do nothing to get it back to the detection range it had originally, which was quite good for a machine of its design vintage.


Incidentally, here is a link to a Garrett Sea Hunter find by another member from a few months ago: http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/today-s-finds/355763-does-coral-beep-yes-when-its-full-coins.html

 

[lookindown]

You know your going to have to dig everything with the SS.If the beaches your going to hunt are fairly clean, you will be ok...the beaches I hunt have so many iron targets that if I dug them all I would find very few good targets. I would spend the vast majority of my day digging junk.

 

[bigscoop]

Where you are located may decide for you. Probably not a good idea to purchase a dig-it-all PI for iron rich environments. My local beaches are typically pretty free of iron jungles, but we just had a northeaster pass through and for a few days afterwards there were a lot of areas that were like iron target minefields, with most of it being just lite fragments, or nails, screws, fish hooks, wire, etc. Now imagine this being the typical, everyday environment. I only bring this up because you didn't say where you were located at?

 

[OBN]

Big Scoop is correct, best to check and see what the locals are using. This will give you a good idea on what works best.

 

[DewGuru]

Hi all, I know there are discussions about water detectors, but I wanted your opinion about the tesoro sand shark in particular. Please don't mention the minelab Excalibur as it's out of budget.

A fine machine, hard to beat. I own 2. Take a look at the link in my signature for my personal finds as well as those of others.

 

[tiderider]

Sea hunter all the way it's just a great machine to use , Jolly mon made some good points , the battery compartment is a biggie , I have the tiger shark it's a great machine but would not change batteries in the elements at all , so it's all on you , GL , tiderider

 

[claytablet]

My AT Pro didn't do as well in salt water as I'd hoped, and I was looking for a good machine that worked well in the water, and didn't break the bank at the same time. After much research I bought a Sea Hunter Mark II and am thouroughly impressed with it. The standard mode doesn't impress me as much as the discrete mode seems to hold the threshold sound better. If you buy one be ready to dig though, as mine had given good signals on rusty bobby pins at 8 inches. I even found a Chuck Cheese token at 12 inches (talk about a prize huh). Also, you can eliminate pull tabs and junk and still dig good targets. I use "O" discrimination in the discrete mode with a minimum threshold sound. Having been in industrial sales for years I pride myself in customer satisfaction, particullary after the sale, and Garret's customer service can't be beat. That having been said, I highly recommend the Sea Hunter Mark II. If you put in in the water it will pay for itself, and give you a lot of fun at the same time.

 

[fsa46]

Don't know about the SS but I can tell you that my DFPI has easily paid for my Excalibur, Sovereign GT, MXT Pro, DF itself and ALL my scoops, waders, wetsuits and equipment that goes with this hobby.

I like this machine so much and could never imagine being without one, that I bought another as a back-up and switch off between hunts.

You can definitely fine a good, used DFPI in your price range and probably cheaper than a new SS.

.....but, as mentioned, be prepared to do a LOT of digging and it can't be used if you have a lot of trash where you hunt.

 

[methevas2]

I got the at pro hoping to hit up the water at the beaches and it was NOT was I was hoping for. It constantly chattered and you couldnt do jack squat about it. I decided to keep it for parks and freshwater use and got the excal 2.... Best thing I ever got