Head hunter, is it good?
- Thread starter royal75
- Start date
Although Detector Pro states it is for fresh or salt water, it will not work well in salt water. If that is what you hunt, don't waste your money.
Freshwater or land it will work fine. The Sand Shark is fine of course but you dig a lot of junk really slowing you down. You need an Excalibur, CTX or CZ21 for salt in the water hunting. For wet sand only you can use any Minelab bbs or fbs machine. Excal is #1 in sales and users.
romyrome
Elite Member
i have the older head hunter P.I and i love it, i use it for mostly low tide hunting but now and again i take her in to about waste deep in the salt water beaches here in so cal , she finds me lots of goods with little trouble in fact i can tell by the sound if its junk a lot of the time
but unfortunately they dont make this model anymore 
here is my channel you can see in my videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxh0_YHCbFlJ_zXjjeHjwHA/videos?view_as=publicscott.f
Elite Member
I have and use the underwater here in Costa Rica. Lots of black sand here and of course in saltwater. Also used it in British Columbia on one of the most mineralized saltwater beaches I know. The Detectorpro Underwater runs beautifully in saltwater mineralized beaches.
DaviDs
Forum Supporter
Owned / used 4 models.....
The DetectorPro was made with two configurations, a pulse induction and an analog single freqency platform based on fishers 1280x. The pulse induction works like any other pulse machine and handles the salt superbly! The single frequency platforms are another story. My diver model with the 8" coil was tuned and it worked the same as a new 10" diver and the brand new setup with the 12" NEL coil. However, "worked" is a relative term based on context.
Context in freshwater (Single freq). In fresh water with stable ground with low or no mineralization, you'll hear a nice steady humm of the threshold. If you hear a beep, swing back and forth over the target, and most of the time the signal will be repeatable and yield an actual target. With sensitivity near max, you can dig targets 8-12". Its simple and usually accurate. BTW, there is only one tone....gold, silver, alum, iron....all the same beep.
Context in saltwater / wet salt sand (Single Freq). At the ocean, the first thing you notice is chatter and false/erroneous signals. To mitigate the erroneous signals you will decrease the sensitivity, and decrease it A LOT if you have black sand. Regardless of 8, 10, or the 12 NEL coil, your target depth will be reduced. In these conditions with the 12" NEL, the max depth was 6" and even less for the 8"/10" coils. Even with reduced sensitivity you'll hear chatter and random beeps. The random beeps mean you will stop to check, recheck, and triple check swings because you are afraid of skipping over a real signal.
The thing I liked about the DP was it would fold up and fit in my briefcase so I could keep it with me when traveling for work. But where is it now? I sold it, my ocean hunting pals sold theirs too.....well, except the guy who has the PI version. Anyhow, for salt water hunting, I'd stick with proven machines like the Fisher CZ21 or Minelab Excalibur.
I just tested the Head Hunter UW 12 with NEL coil on a gulf beach near Clearwater Fl. That machine falsed constantly like any single frequency machine. There are videos showing it working in salt water but wading it did not work for me. You can run the sens down to stop the chatter running in silent mode but you lose up to 4" in depth. Even at silent mode it would false making you think there is a target. Just false signal, slows you down for nothing.
The AT Pro, Tiger Shark and others do the same thing. I had hoped it would work for me but it was a total fail. I watched the videos, talked to Scott from Findmall forum and hoped it would work. It took me 30 minutes on the beach to know it would never work.
DaviDs
Forum Supporter
thx!
As a consumer, I'm tired of misleading advertisements. When a manufacturer says a detector will "work" in the ocean, I think that means an operator can use it in/at the ocean in the same mannor as using it at a playground, dry sand, or a farm field. Unfortunately, many of these single frequency detectors will only "work" if you sacrifice depth, put up with chatter, false targets, etc, etc, etc. In quality control, we'd call this a failure.
In contrast, multi-frequency and pi machines claim they can be used in any environment.... and when you turn it on you can successfully go from a playground to a field to a sand beach and to the ocean with little to no difference in performance. Now that is a truth in advertising.
-David
Well I guess that answers my question on considering it as a future machine.
If we all know that single frequency machines just don't cut the mustard in salt environments, why do they continue to be made by detector manufacturers and state that they will work in them? Working in those environments and being effective competitors for the machines that are currently in successful use are 2 different things. Can't they add $10(?) to the cost and make it a dual/multi-frequency machine that can work in salt water and not just be limited to fresh water? To me it just makes business sense.
DAVID - I was writing my response when you posted. You're right on!
If we all know that single frequency machines just don't cut the mustard in salt environments, why do they continue to be made by detector manufacturers and state that they will work in them? Working in those environments and being effective competitors for the machines that are currently in successful use are 2 different things. Can't they add $10(?) to the cost and make it a dual/multi-frequency machine that can work in salt water and not just be limited to fresh water? To me it just makes business sense.
DAVID - I was writing my response when you posted. You're right on!
metaladdict
Elite Member
Detector pro
That sux that Detector pro would flat out lie about their product saying it works in saltwater.
That sux that Detector pro would flat out lie about their product saying it works in saltwater.
Well, they are not lying at all. It will work. The AT Pro will work in salt too and the Tiger Shark has a setting along with the MXT. You just have to turn down the sensitivity a LOT to stop the noise. Doing that will give you a few inches. No way can any of those machines get close to the depth the CZ gets and it is only 2 frequencies. The Excal has many frequencies and seems to be the favorite water machine. So, those other guys are not lying, just not being honest on the depth. On the positive side, the Detector Pro UW model is solid built. Heavy coil wire and good coil. I would have one if we did not have alligators in our lakes here.That sux that Detector pro would flat out lie about their product saying it works in saltwater.
I can see how it would be a fresh water diving machine. Although the price is high, you can get a Tiger Shark much cheaper and the Tiger is well known as a very deep fresh water machine. Even Tesoro says this:"Working in the wet salt areas is where the Tiger Shark outshines the land detectors. In land conditions, the most crucial adjustment is using the ground balance to tune out mineralization. In wet salt conditions, changes in the conductivity in the sand cause most of the problems. The Tiger Shark uses a completely different set of internal settings in the SALT Mode than in the NORM Mode. There are no special controls or techniques to remember."
Same old BS trying to sell a single freq for salt. Tiger Shark does not work well on salt but here they are trying to sell it.
DaviDs
Forum Supporter
I wondered that too. There are a lot of MD kits available so I started searching for a MF-VLF kit. No luck. but I did find an amazing amount of patents for detectors.
You'll see tons of White's and ML patents... maybe this is the reason no one is producing a MF-VLF machine?
