Primarily Beach Hunting detector advise

SgtDball

New Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2016
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7
--Hey Guys,

I used to play with cheap metal detectors back home when I was younger. Now I live on the beach and I spend a lot of time there. I wanted to get a metal detector to primarily search the beach when I am waiting for sharks to bite the bait. I did some searching and I am looking at the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. I would love to hear from anyone who has this detector or if someone who primarily searches the beach uses a different one.

I don't really have a price limit, but I would prefer to keep it under 1000.00 and looking to buy used if possible. Any advice would be great. My wife got me some treasure cove Platinum garbage, that we are returning so I got some time.

Thank you.
 
Welcome from Forney, Texas.

If you're talking about salt water beaches, there really are only two options. A pulse induction unit, or multi-frequency such as Minelab BBS or FBS units. A Fisher CZ20/21 unit can work as well, but the best are the Minelab units, from my personal experience.

I'm sure others will chime in with their favorites...
 
I too have been doing a little research on which detector would be good for the beach (saltwater beach). Of the many threads I looked at the overall majority of people used either the fisher cz21 or the minelab excalibur II. There were others mentioned, but from what I found out these two are the most popular and seem to be about equal in performance from what I've read. I've never owned or used either, and I don't even live near the beach, but I may consider one of these some day just to take on vacations to the beach.
 
Beach detectors can be put into four different groups.

Group one is the standard land detector with either a fixed ground balance or an adjustable manual ground balance that will not adjust for wet salt sand. Most land detectors and the AT Pro fit this group. You can successfully use these detectors on a wet salt sand beach, but you need to lower the sensitivity to where they quiet down enough to use. Their performance will be limited.

Group two is the machines with a manual ground balance that will adjust for wet salt sand. The AT Gold, Tesoro Tigershark, and MX Pro as well as the non waterproof MXT and F75 are some examples. The problem with these machines is that the mineralization of wet salt sand beaches changes dramatically in very short distances. For example black sand balances very different than the white beach sand, trying to keep up in the streaks is impossible. Also damp sand balances different than sand awash in seawater. There is no way to maintain ground balance in the surf with these machines. You will find yourself reducing the sensitivity like in the group one detectors, although these detectors will not be as far out of balance as the machines in group one, and will offer better performance.

Group three is the multi frequency machines with automatic ground tracking made for salt water beaches. Minelab Excaliber and Fisher CZ 21 are examples as well as land/water machines like CTX 3030 and the non waterproof V3I machine. These machines offer the best salt water beach performance, but are expensive. If you plan to spend a lot of the time on salt water beaches, these are the machines to use.

Group four is the machines that use the pulse induction or PI operating mode. PI is immune to ground minerals and will deliver maximum performance on salt water beaches, and PI machines tend to go deeper than VLF machines. The big problem with PI machines is there is no discrimination. Some machines like the Garrett Sea Hunter claim to have some sort of discrimination, but if you read the reviews you will see that this primitive discrimination doesn’t work that well. Since the vast majority of beaches contain a large amount of iron trash, with a PI machine you will spend your time digging this trash, at crazy deep depths. The VLF machines can discriminate out this iron, PI machines can’t. In the time it takes for a person with a PI machine to search 100 feet of beach, and dig all the iron trash, the person with a VLF machine can search 500 to 1000 feet of beach or more. At the end of the day who do you think will have more good finds?
 
Definitely Salt water beaches, North Carolina to be exact. I have searched some of the forum already and it seems to give me answers all over the place.

This post was more related to the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. It is well priced I was just hoping I could get some feedback on that specific model as I don't plan to invest more than 1000 at this point. I already read Crappy's post here on another thread. So if we could narrow it down to anyone who has the Garrrett Sea Hunter Mark II that would be great.
 
I owned a sea hunter2 for a long time.
It worked reliably in saltwater and it ignored black magnatite but it can't reject iron.
Forget about the fake disrimination ,you have to dig all except double beep
Bobby pins.
I got tired of the monotone beep.
I sold it and got a much nicer Minelab sov elite.
Hope that helps.
 
Definitely Salt water beaches, North Carolina to be exact. I have searched some of the forum already and it seems to give me answers all over the place.

This post was more related to the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. It is well priced I was just hoping I could get some feedback on that specific model as I don't plan to invest more than 1000 at this point. I already read Crappy's post here on another thread. So if we could narrow it down to anyone who has the Garrrett Sea Hunter Mark II that would be great.

Used Excalibur. I have an Infinium which is like using a seahunter. But nobody can pick your poison for you.
 
Definitely Salt water beaches, North Carolina to be exact. I have searched some of the forum already and it seems to give me answers all over the place.

This post was more related to the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. It is well priced I was just hoping I could get some feedback on that specific model as I don't plan to invest more than 1000 at this point. I already read Crappy's post here on another thread. So if we could narrow it down to anyone who has the Garrrett Sea Hunter Mark II that would be great.

I owned the Sea Hunter as well as the Excal, Explorer, Fisher CZ and a half dozen others.

The SH2 was rugged and worked almost without a flaw. As others mentioned, you have to dig everything. In the dry area, you'll shoot yourself because it pics up the 1 gram size foil and metal objects at 12" deep. The area is so laden with trash you end up skipping it (and the chance for good targets). In the wet sand at the surfs edge I'd average about 3-lbs of trash and less than $1 an hour.

When I switched to the multi-frequency machines (CZ, Explorer, and Excal), I could set them in auto mode without any fuss and my hourly average of trash went down to less than 6 oz and clad more than doubled. The neat thing is once you get the hand of it you can start tweaking the settings to gain greater depth and sensitivity.

The Excal vs. Explorer --- excal is waterproof but you have to get used to a high volume threshold in order gain superdepth and sensitivity. Meanwhile the explorer (as well as the etrac, safari, quattro, and CTX) have an auto boost feature that makes faint signals loud and clear without having to set the threshold to such a high volume. I ended up waterproofing a few explorers and using them in the rain and light surf. But to dive, you definately need the excal.

Back to the original post, the Excal has a hardwired coil and phones so you better like what it comes with or be willing to pay some bucks to get it modded. Meanwhile the SH2 and the Explorer/Safari/Etrac/CTX have connectors that allow you to swap phones and coils. Definately a nice feature if you want to have a small coil and waterproof phones for the surf and then a monster beach coil and comfy landphones for the shore.

Any other questions, just ask!
 
This post was more related to the Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II. It is well priced ...

Regardless of brand AND new or used, CALL THE FORUM SPONSORS before you buy!!!. The sponsors beat the MSRP and often get pre-owned equipment that may help you save even more.
 
Regardless of brand AND new or used, CALL THE FORUM SPONSORS before you buy!!!. The sponsors beat the MSRP and often get pre-owned equipment that may help you save even more.
Where were you with this advice BEFORE I bought??

;)
 
I really think DaviDs did a wonderful job explaining the detectors. However he mentioned the CZ-21 by Fisher but didn't expand on it. It is a great machine for salt water and fresh water also and is built like a tank. If you are not diving the main thing it has going for it is after hipmounting the shaft and coil are very light and easy to swing.

Most on here use either the Excal or the CZ-21. They both discriminate very well and will serve you well in fresh and salt water. The drawback to both is they are locked in salt water mode. With that said they will not find gold chains with small links due to the nature of gold.
 
When I hunted the beach, started with an AT Pro. As it was said, it works, just not all that well. Then I picked up a old Minelab Sovereign XS. Basically an Excalibur for land (not waterproof). The Sovereign series excels in dry, damp, and wet sand. As long as you keep the control box dry, you will to great. If you feel the need to get wet, look at the Excalibur. The Sov XS works well in dirt too. But then I should use my trusty Etrac for the dirt. That being said, the Etrac will work on the beach too. When I did bring my Etrac to the beach, it just seemed like information overload.

Best of luck in your search.
 
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