Whites Surfmaster Pi Pro v Garrett Seahunter mk. 2

[DOGMAN ( U.K )]

Any advise on which out of the above machines is the better buy? Although the Garrett can discriminate ringpulls, I don't want to miss silver coins and jewellery. I'll be using it mainly on wet sand, dry sand and just in the surf as the water here in the U.k is B***** cold. lol Advise please.

 

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[Sandman]

If you want to scoop gold rings, white gold and yellow and also rose gold, you are going to have to dig pull tabs. The conductivity is to much alike.

As for which detector I would go with either the Garrett or a Tesoro Sand Shark. The Whites Surfmaster PI is an older Whites. The Surf PI Pro is their up to day Pulse and while nice in the dry and wet sand, the coil floats in the water. This means you must constantly hold it down on the bottom. Guys have added a sand filled sock or such to the shaft or coil but all this adds water resistance where the waves move the coil around. The Garrett and Tesoro don't seem to have this problem at all. I would suggest the Sand Shark also because of the lifetime warranty. Also you never hear of them leaking.........

http://www.losttreasure.com/fieldtests/ArchiveView07.cfm?ID=lt19990725

Good Luck,
Sandman

 

[rayredditch]

You can get the Deep Diver coil for the Whites PI (I have it), which is resin filled, and this is much better for in the salt water, although heavy on the dry sand.
Regarding the leaking problems on Whites, if you have the newer box with the newer orange coloured O-Ring, and keep this clean and correctly lubricated with silicone grease, then that problem is a thing of the past.

 

[Daniel Montes]

My Sandshark leaked the day after I found my first gold ring. It needs to be redesigned. Buy a detector with a separate battery compartment. Good luck. Daniel.

 

[richm]

You can get the Deep Diver coil for the Whites PI (I have it), which is resin filled, and this is much better for in the salt water, although heavy on the dry sand.
Regarding the leaking problems on Whites, if you have the newer box with the newer orange coloured O-Ring, and keep this clean and correctly lubricated with silicone grease, then that problem is a thing of the past.

Ray, where can I get the "Deep Diver" coil? I don't see it on White's website..Rich

 

[GibH]

Ray, where can I get the "Deep Diver" coil? I don't see it on White's website..Rich
[/quote]

You would have to send it in to White's. I don't know what they charge to swap them out, so you'd have to call them. Most people buy them with the diver coil already on it.

 

[Old Tom]

I have been trying to not, respond to topics here very much the last couple years, because there is so much disagreement, even though in most cases it is done in a nice way. But sometimes it is hard not to say something.

The whites PI is a very good salt water detector. In the honest tests that I have done, and have read on line, it is one of the deepest going. Yes in my opinion deeper than the Excalibur, but have not compared to the Garrett. Yes you do have to dig everything. But that makes you good at digging. If everyone dug all the targets that are out in the water, you end up with less and less trash, if it is a beach you will be going to often, by digging out all the trash, it gets easier each time. It will get to a point where you are digging more good targets (new lost items) than trash. Also it makes treasure hunters look good to get all those sharp nasty targets out of the water.

I have had mine for 17 years, it still works great and has never leaked. Mine has the weighted coil. To stop the coil from flopping around, White's has a kit that locks it in place. The new Surf PI dual field has a new coil called near zero buoyancy. It is like the older weighted coil. I do think I will be buying a new PI dual field this year.


This is all my opinion, But twice I have found rings where I had a friend I was hunting with, who uses a Excalibur check the signal and got nothing. I have not hunted with anyone that uses a Garrett, so do not know how it will compare. I do know that most all (not all) the targets that everyone digs, can be found with any of the quality detectors that you read about on here.