Upgrading MD and need help and/or advice! Please!

nprouse · Mar 10, 2011

I currently have a white's prizm II and want to upgrade to a better MD. I want to be able to pick up deeper signals, and my main use is relic hunting and coin hunting. I have been looking at a Garrett AT Pro and wondered if anyone has any suggestions on this MD or another MD similar or better for the money. I appreciate all the help I can get as this will probably be my last MD purchase for a while. Thanks for all of your help and suggestions.

Silver Searcher · Mar 10, 2011

nprouse said:
I currently have a white's prizm II and want to upgrade to a better MD. I want to be able to pick up deeper signals, and my main use is relic hunting and coin hunting. I have been looking at a Garrett AT Pro and wondered if anyone has any suggestions on this MD or another MD similar or better for the money. I appreciate all the help I can get as this will probably be my last MD purchase for a while. Thanks for all of your help and suggestions.

I think you need to tell us of the terrain that you hunt, and what your budget is :dontknow:

if the land you hunt has not been disturbed(ploughed) in the last ten years, you might have to spend big money to get to those deep targets.
Some of the guys here are buying the GPX5000 for hunted out sites, or quiet sites and getting massive depth.

SS

nprouse · Mar 10, 2011

Im hunting plowed fields, old homesteads, and areas that I believe have never been touched, near rivers, and caves, located in SW Kentucky. Thanks for the help.

Swartzie · Mar 10, 2011

A machine that has a true all metal mode will go deeper and is more sensitive to smaller stuff. There is a difference between all metal and just using zero discrimination. See here for an explanation: http://www.akmining.com/forums/showthread.php/722-All-Metal-versus-Zero-Discrimination If you're more fond of relic stuff where you dig everything then maybe consider a machine with a true all metal mode. Just my 2 cents.

-Swartzie

U.K. Brian · Mar 11, 2011

I got deleted for saying that on another forum Swatzie, though its mainly true and can be easily tested. Funnily enough with my old Whites XLT on some ground it was better to almost fully open up the discrimination side rather than use all metal so there's always an exception that proves the rule. Keep intending to see if it applies to all Spectrums or not.

As for the likes of the GPX 5000 which I haven't tested yet its worth looking up the "Southren (thats how its spelled on the forum) California Field Test of the Minelab/Garrett/White's Detectors and Coil" of August 2006 on this forum. We checked the results on English soil at the time and got similar Minelab SD-2100 results and repeated the test with a GPX 4000 in 2007 and with another of their older pulses (can't remember which).

Just in case it was deleted in the past the Explorer XS was compared with the SD-2100 on a coin and 25 gram of gold. The Explorer was deeper with its 10.5 inch coil and you had to go up to an 18 inches coil size for the pulse to pull ahead. Same with the later model. Add to that the fact there's better coils for the Explorers now and the price difference between the detectors I would only consider the Minelab pulses for hoard hunting and even an old one would be out of your price range.

I would go for a secondhand Nautilus DMC if you don't mind the bulk of the detector or for a used T2 (version 6.0 on) or F75 both of which are light, sensitive, fast recovery speed and low battery consumption.