Best Metal Detector for Wet Sand & Salt Water

LostNowFound

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
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336
Location
Northern New Jersey
What is the best metal detector for wet sand and salt water? Regardless of price. I want to hunt at the each along the waters edge.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
 
I hear the minelab Excaliburs II are good.

Each person is going to give a different opinion.

some people like the PI (pulse induction) machines they go much deeper then other machines.

others like certain name brands. minelab, garrett, FISHER, whites, etc.

The guys at the local detector shops use minelab Excaliburs II,

They go to the carribean 4-5 times a year. i have seen the stuff they find with those machines. thats what I base my info on.
 
Are you looking for something with Disc or a PI? For Disc I would get a CZ21, the cz's have always been one of the best salt sand machines, I found plenty of deep things with my CZ when I hunted beaches. The Excal is good too but I have never been a fan of the Minelab tones or the way they hit targets. I also think the CZ is deeper in my experience. If you don't need disc and go PI, the Whites seems to be the most popular but I have never used a PI machine so I can't comment.
 
price range

Whats your price range,do you want disc,or a Df pi without disc,waterproof,were are you going to hunt ? All of these are key factors.More info is needed.
 
If you are hunting very trashy areas then a VLF - Minelab Excal or CZ-21. If not so trashy, and you want maximum depth, then a PI is the way to go.
 
I belong to a NJ MD club. Many of the members are beach hunters. All use Minelabs. Most use the Excal or Sovereign GT. Others use the the Explorer SE Pro or the E-Trac. Of those, only the Excal is totally waterproof. The others can work the wet sand.

From what this group has told me the PI machines are not well suited for NJ's beaches because of the high iron content. The PI machines will work, but you will dig a lot of junk iron. The Minelab's can disc that junk out.

I own a Sovereign GT and really like the way it works. It's a basic beep and dig machine. Easy to use and works as advertised.
 
With a disc, I want to be able to discriminate out the iron. I'll be hunting New Jersey beaches. I appreciate your advice.

Thanks

I'd get a CZ21 with 10.5in coil for NJ beaches. I used a CZ with 10.5 coil for years on NJ beaches and it did very well. Excal's are also nice but I like the Fisher tones mores and the way it hit targets. Try them both out if you can, both great machines so it comes down to which you like swinging more.
 
Garrett At pro does a great job and wont break the bank.
 
Minelab's Soveriegn GT does an excellent job of discrimination of iron, but if you drop it in the water it will be toast. The Excal is the waterproof verison of the GT.........you may at some point when the waters are quiet want to wander into the ocean with your machine. I just got the Garrett AT Pro and will be trying it out this weekend to see how it performs. I have heard really good results on this machine and it is waterproof and half the price of an Excal. Do some research on the Minelab & Garrett forums and see who is getting what with these machines.
 
tjc45 is Right on

Been to the jersey shores several times and the detector of choice is the Minelabs Excalibur. Most use it because of the conditions, you can go from few targets to several with alot of iron mixed in, A PI would work but you would have to pass these area and may miss gold. A few hunt in reverse discrimination and get more depth, then when they come into these areas just leave it in discriminate. There is Black sand in some areas but not enought to slow the excal down from finding the Gold. One thing about AC that I have discovered, lot of hunters, so you really have to watch the tides, learn the beach, watch for the right conditions, and be there at the right time. Watch surfdiggers youtube video's, join his facebook page and this will keep you up on the latest.........Good Luck .joe

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=54483518009#!/group.php?gid=54483518009&v=wall
 
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