Big Boys Hobbies

Metal detector for salt water beach gold hunting?

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megane16v

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What do you folks think about Whites PI Pro or Sand Shark or Tiger Shark or some other fine detectors?

I live near the coast,and I would like to go gold hunting with my dad. We think we need to purchase some of good underwater/beach detector,but it must not go over let say 700-800$. I was hopping you can give us an advice??
 
Btw I forgot to say,there will be lot of trash on this beach eg.pull tabs,cans,etc. so what underwater detector will eliminate trash from gold?
 
Hello from White Plains, New York!

For $1,400.00 you can get a"BBS" Minelab Excalibur II, that will discriminate out Iron, but you cannot discriminate out aluminum and expect to find gold.

For $577.00 you can get a "PI" Tesoro Sand Shark, that does not discriminate at all, but goes deeper than the Excalibur.

Do your homework, and good luck! :cool:
 
Thank you Terry, I see you know your way around md. I've been doing some research and found this. Excalibur II is awesome machine but there is 2 drawbacks,first drawback is poor quality and design of device,second is not very distinctive sound between good and bad target,so you have to be very skilled to hunt with Minelab. I saw also great reviews for Tesoro Sand Shark,but there is no discrimination. So I went further,and found out that their discriminating model Tiger Shark,works only for fresh water. Also I've come around to read few reviews for White's Surf PI Dual Field Metal Detector. People say it goes immensely deep,also there is no discrimination, so rather smarter, I'm even more confused now. There is no chance to go with Garret AT Pro,cause they're not good in salt water,poor ground balance etc. It is hard to determine which one is better,because people if found any dime,they will put their md to heaven,there is few to none true review,like comparison of 2 same price tag or same purpose metal detector. Anyway, I am determined to buy one,and I don't want to purchase "wrong" detector!
 
megane16v said:
Btw I forgot to say,there will be lot of trash on this beach eg.pull tabs,cans,etc. so what underwater detector will eliminate trash from gold?
Click to expand...

No detector will separate pull tabs from gold. If you want to dig up gold you will be digging up pull tabs. We all start this hobby saying the same thing,"I don't want to dig pull tabs" And then we learn the fact that pull tabs and rings register about the same on a detector. As for getting a detector that discriminates I always recommend the Excalibur.
I have been using an Excalibur since 1996 and it is simple to use. Turn it on and hunt. After using it for a while you will know from the tones if your over foil, a bottle cap, coin and even most gold you can tell by the tone. If you use it enuf most of the time you will know what denomination of coin you are digging. As far as hunting in the water I would never hunt a trashy beach with anything else. If your just hunting the wet sand then I would get a Sovereign GT. Good Luck with whichever machine you choose.
 
Tom I see you have White's Surf PI Dual Field,can you tell me something about it? Is it deeper than Excalibur? And I know what you mean by ,you don't want to hunt in trashy beach,but guess what - that beach has never been sweep'd by any md, so I guess there will be some valuable items,but also lot of trash. I want to consider Excalibur,but recent user reviews about poor quality and bad customer support made me think twice before buying it...
 
I went to the "president" of the local club and some other guys on the beach before I got my Excal II. Yes, it's a "pain" to lug around until you get a hip mount or straight shaft, but I'm only 1 of 2 people that currently have a failed unit. The other 30 or so on the beach (that I've been told exist) are ok.

I sent mine back and they've already sent a new unit. I can't vouch for the rest out there, but I probably got a dud. I've been working with electronics for 18+ years now and it happens with EVERY type of electronics. Components fail even after being tested at the factory. It's the reason I still have a job.

There is a learning curve (I'm still on the uphill battle), but that machine does great here and is the most popular on the VA Beach beaches.

My point is talk to the guys detecting your beaches. Find out what they're swinging and why. They may have tried a PI and there's just too much junk or they've had a BBS or VLF and it doesn't work well. Take their word for it, not the reviews online. They may be accurate but I read one that said the Excal II had only 2 good units out of 8... I know that's not the case...

Terry's given some really good info too. This forum is great for giving correct and mostly unbiased info, but the best info comes from someone else hunting the same area!

Good Luck and HH!
 
Look into the Fisher CZ21, it's the only other discriminating machine that competes with the Excal in saltwater. There is the Whites Beach Hunter ID 300 also, but if you have bad black sand, it has problems on bad ground...
 
Thank you for your advice badgerd,also nameless. I understand electronic can brake and malfunction,but I read about water coming into control box,and buttons poorly made,shaft so short,etc,that's not electronic. Since I live in mid Europe,it would be inconvenient to send it across Atlantic every time I get into trouble with it,but I might just risk buying one. How deep can it go? Can you hit gold ring 10" in wet sand with it? I've read that Excalibur cannot detect gold chain,and on that beach,only me lost 2 gold chains lol. Anyway, I will do some more research, I like idea of Excalibur, I will try to google and search more,to convince myself its a good stuff. :)
 
I agree that the excal needs a different shaft. I have one now, but those first few hunts were brutal.

As for water intrusion... There's a chance that it could happen with any water detector. I love my excal, but I'd rather you find the unit you like and are totally happy with espically since you would have a extremely long wait for any repairs.

I'm still goldless so I can't say too much on that, I did dig a pull tab at around 10"... Site sounded good!

Picking a detector is probably the hardest part of this hobby... Good luck...
 
Ok Badgerd,thanks for info. You are 100%,choosing first metal detector is very hard. I hope I can make good decision :) Cya!
 
megane16v said:
Thank you for your advice badgerd,also nameless. I understand electronic can brake and malfunction,but I read about water coming into control box,and buttons poorly made,shaft so short,etc,that's not electronic. Since I live in mid Europe,it would be inconvenient to send it across Atlantic every time I get into trouble with it,but I might just risk buying one. How deep can it go? Can you hit gold ring 10" in wet sand with it? I've read that Excalibur cannot detect gold chain,and on that beach,only me lost 2 gold chains lol. Anyway, I will do some more research, I like idea of Excalibur, I will try to google and search more,to convince myself its a good stuff. :)
Click to expand...

No metal detector is going to have a easy time of seeing a gold chain as the detector does not see the entire chain instead it sees one link at a time or the clasp if its large enough...

The Excal needs out of the box a straight shaft because the original use for the Excal was diving and the S shaft was perfect for that otherwise its a very good machine...
 
megane16v said:
What do you folks think about Whites PI Pro or Sand Shark or Tiger Shark or some other fine detectors?

I live near the coast,and I would like to go gold hunting with my dad. We think we need to purchase some of good underwater/beach detector,but it must not go over let say 700-800$. I was hopping you can give us an advice??
Click to expand...
The Minelab Xterra 705 also works well on the beach. You can't get the box wet but you can get waterproof coils for it. It is also in your budget at a little over $700usd. Also, I am pretty sure that Minelab, has service centers in Europe.
Bunk
 
I would also recommend the Fisher CZ21. It does very well in salt water, wet sand and is water proof. It has good discrimination but can false on iron sometimes and sound like a coin. It is locked in 'salt' mode and so is not the best thing for dry land or fresh water hunting due to the ground balance being set so low for the salt conditions. A good used one can be found sometimes for around 750-800 US dollars. I use the Fisher CZ3D which has the same 'salt' mode on it as the CZ21 and also an 'enhanced' mode, but it's not water proof. The CZ3D is a great dry land machine in the 'enhanced' mode if you're looking for older US coins and there isn't a really bad case of iron in the ground.

I have heard of several people that have used the Garrett AT Pro on wet sand and salt water even thou it's not advertised as such. From what I've read, it doesn't do well on tiny micro gold such as ladies earrings and small gold chains when it has been groundbalanced down low enough to work in the salt, but I would give that up for the gold rings!

I think it's hard to find just one detector that does it all, and I guess the AT Pro is the closest thing that I know of that would work for most all conditions, and the price is very good for what you get!
 
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