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bounty hunter quick silver good or bad

streetshark1966

Elite Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
528
Location
knox county ohio
i bought my first detector a few days ago it a bounty hunter quick silver. Was that a bad choice? First day out i found s few clads quarters and a few pennies.
 
You found some treasure, so it can't be all bad. I've got the BH QuickDraw II, works well enough, it finds metal consistently, and usually pretty accurate on the identification, if the tone is strong and repeatable.

It will work out okay, and you'll get better with it over time, just takes a little time to learn what the detector is trying to tell. It's probably a good starting machine, just like mine, and you'll have some fun with it, and decide what like, dislike, and whether you really need something else.
 
Bounty Hunter's are good beginner machines. Don't use much discrimination and overlap the coil really well. Don't expect much depth over 3"-but that's where most stuff is at local parks and schools. After you're proficient with it, you'll want to upgrade but you'll have some experience.
 
i found a mercury, a war nickel a silver rosie and a buffalo nickel with my quicksilver, they are not bad machines they wont give you the depth of a more expensive machine , but if you go slow swinging you will find some silver with it. i use mine as a back up now or when my wife wants to go she will swing it. cant say anything bad about the bhqs, it will find you plenty of clad and some silver if you take your time hunting. some advice get a pin pointer if you havent already, the quick silver is not too good at pin pointing a object.
I recommend you get a set of headsets if you havent already, it will make your batteries last much longer
 
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I was most misfortunate in the fact that I used this machine, (Pioneer EX...Wally World version) for my first 3 months.
To be fair, I have some of the worst soil in the country as far as mineralization, and mine seemed to have a few extra problems most don't seem to have.

The good...
It will find coins pretty easily, and other stuff as long as they are not to deep.

The bad...
Eats batteries like candy, mine had no head phone jack so it might be better if you can and do use headphones.

That depth thing. In my soil, maybe I can get 4 inches on a quarter...maybe.
Most other targets usually 2-3 inches was my limit.
Aluminum depth was great...center of the earth, depth-wise.

Really bad at pinpointing.
No pinpoint button, and even the xing thing is a very large area...larger than most others.
The only thing that saved me was buying a Harbor Freight pinpointer 2 weeks in.

The really bad...probably on mine only....
This unit cannot handle mineralization at all...probably one good reason why my depth was almost nonexistent.

I also think my coil was wound incorrectly because not only was it the worst at pinpointing, every target was at least 2 inches to the left and 2 inches north than where you would think it would be.
I did learn to deal with it...eventually, but it was not easy.

The worst problem I had was falsing.
On the lower 2 settings on the sense it would false on almost every swing...on the highest it WOULD false on every swing.
This was probably due to my mineralization problem and I suspect maybe the unit sensitivity was turned up too high internally.
I did take it apart and there are some adjustments I could make...I think...but First Texas was no help in telling me any info on how to do this myself.
They wanted me to send it in, and I told them I would not spend one more dollar on shipping or anything else on this machine, and never will.
The one blessing in disguise, I eventually learned to pick out false signals from the real ones due to this huge problem, and I can still do that to this day on any detector I use in any situation.
Probably better than most.
Falsing never bothers me anymore, and I usually hunt on the highest sensitivity settings on all my detectors nowadays...even in bad sites with high EM.

3 months after struggling with mine, I bought a Tesoro and after 3 swings I realized just how bad mine really was...at everything.

Others have posted way less problems in other parts of the country than me, and were way happier with the way it worked for them, but there was a thread last year on the worst detector opinions and this one was commented on by the most members in that thread.

I hope yours works better than mine did, but once you try another...any other...you will see what I am talking about here.
Even the higher end Bounty Hunters have way better reviews than this low end unit.

I did end up figuring this one out, even with all the problems, and it became much more fun and less frustrating when I did.
It is a metal detector and it will work and find plenty if you learn it, but eventually aim for something else one day and you will probably end up being much happier when you see how the rest of the field stacks up against this one.


FYI...The Quicksilver, Pioneer EX and the 1st Texas Pilot are all the same models under different names.

For now...use it, learn it well, have fun and I hope you find lots of clad, gold and silver to help you with your next upgrade.

HH
 
The good thing is it'll get you in to the hobby, if you find you like detecting than you can and should upgrade quickly....
I had one, very glad i got rid of it quickly...
 
keep it for a while. I got the quicksilver too and then traded it right back in for an ace 250 which seems like a terrible mistake now since I actually found coins with the BH and can't find any with the Ace! I found silver my first day with the BH and I got good depth with it too, at least 4-5 inches if not more.
 
I had the Bounty Hunter Pioneer EX. I started this season off with it. I cannot believe that 3 1/2 months ago I was using this thing with no pinpointer whatsoever and was bringing in quite a bit of clad.

My best finds were a 1950 wheat cent and a no-date wheat cent. I found 2 junk rings, and a bunch of Tokens. It didn't have a ton of depth, but I got pretty good at pinpointing using the X method, then re-using the X method each time I lowered the sensitivity. I will say that the machine is excellent in the dry sand at the beach. It has a smallish 7inch coil that picks up small things in the sand really well. I would say it performed on par with my F2 at the beach in the dry sand.

Looking back I can't believe how I did so well with it. I am spoiled by the depth and smartfind screen of my Minelab, spoiled by my ProPointer.
 
The quick silver was my first detector too... It was great in my opinion. Very easy to use with depth similar to the F2 and ace 250. It was easy to learn with. I came across it by accident and have been detecting for a year and a half now. I've used several detectors since but I wish they were all as easy to use as the quick silver.
 
I currently have the Quick Silver. I have had a lot of finds, easy to use and I have no problem with its depth so far. I have used it in dry sand and dirt. I have no problems in general with it besides no pin point. But what do you expect for the price. I will be upgrading soon anyway and this will be for friends when they join me. I am getting a f4. :) Great little entry level detector.
 
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