Also, where were you hunting? 53 cents seems par for the course for random dry sand hunting.
Since you also own a CZ-21, you must know the very wet sand along the tide line and ankle deep water or deeper surf is where the Equinox excels. Places where most other non-multifrequency detectors run unstable or their gains have to be turned down so much you lose appreciable depth. Is that where you recovered your clad? If so, not just any detector can work those areas and run stable.
Those just hunting dry sand are at the mercy of recent drops and beachgoer traffic and those targets are snatched up pretty quickly because of the simple fact that every Tom, Dick, and Harriet can hit that part of the beach with a Walmart battery on a stick and find the day's dropped clad.
You probably already know this, but for the benefit of others, you want to score big ticket targets and take advantage of the Equinox's stability and depth in salt water you need to either find significantly eroded parts of the beach at low tide due to storm surf action or get in the water and take your lumps. Most jewelry is not lost on the dry sand towel line where most any detector can go, but in the water when fingers and wrists shrink when entering the cold surf or earrings and necklaces get knocked of folks by wave action.
I always wear nitril close fitting gloves when detecting. They give you tactile feel so you can still operate the buttons on the detector or even your phone, allow you to have a firm, non-slip grip on your detector and scoop/shovel, and protect your hands from shards of glass or metal edges during target recovery. Your hands will still sweat or get wet, but you won't lose your grip.
HTH.
? Has anyone else been having this problem?
