Need help purchasing first metal detector

Minelab safari

After owning serveral detectors over the last 35 years,i like the minelab safari. Great techics,easy to set up and use,great depth and it works great in dry and wet sand. The minelab web site gives great info. Richard,at back woods detectors wil give you a great deal. Going used works too. Hope this helps

JIM BL said:

After owning serveral detectors over the last 35 years,i like the minelab safari. Great techics,easy to set up and use,great depth and it works great in dry and wet sand. The minelab web site gives great info. Richard,at back woods detectors wil give you a great deal. Going used works too. Hope this helps

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Ok thank you, will take that into consideration, looks good on the little research i did on it. Do you have any thoughts on minelab safari VS Nokta GOLDEN SENSE

Dedicated Gold finding machines are a notch or 10 above my wallet and therefore I regretfully have little to offer.... except...


and have fun hunt'n and researching that MD'r and then enjoy the hobby even more.

If you want to be on a cheaper end of your budget go with the Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold Package, or the Garrett AT Gold, if your wanting to push your budget go with the Whites V3i or the CTX3030.

The X-Terra offers alot of cool stuff for its price range, you get to work with 3 different freqs just by the chance of a coil, so you can throw on a 18.75 KHz coil and hunt for gold or throw on the 3 KHz and hunt for silver or 7.5 KHz for general purpose (any coil will find metal, but the different freq help a bit with different metals)

The AT Gold is just a all around good detector for gold hunting from what I hear, I never used one but it is AT Pros big brother and the AT Pro is a excellent detector. and waterproof up to 10 feet

both the above detectors are going to be in the $700 range give or take.

If your pushing you budget the CTX3030 is a AMAZING machine, I mean I dont even have to use it and know its just amazing, you have FBS2 so your on like what is it 100 different freqs at once? no need to switch coils, wireless headphones, GPS, good recovery, if you watch some of the movies on youtube you got people finding coins ON TOP of iron and below it, and its waterproof to 10 feet, colored screen. the machine is just awesome and I wish I could afford one. Looking at about $2500

The Whites V3i is a real good machine too, one of the most important to you probably is the Prospecting Scan which is a Graph that shows where gold maybe. also has 3 different freqs to pick from, but unlike the XT705 you only need to switch the modes to get the other freq (or hunt in all 3 at once) and not switch coils, it has colored screen, also wireless headphones, on-board help guide, you can password protect it! ehe, it has SptraGraph which I have not gotten into much, but its some speciall graph to help you ID things and a bunch of other things. That machine runs about $1500

All machines have the up's and down's there is no perfect detector, best to just visit a Dealer locally really and feel every machine and see what feels the most comfortable in your hands, and be able to sit down with a person and ask questions directly WHILE you have the detector in hand and can see all the options and features to question on.

HH, and good luck/trip!
-DetectThis

What kind of gold are you looking for? Nuggets or coins and jewelry?
If just coins and jewelry then I dont think you would need a "gold machine".
The at pro would probably be a good one for you. easy to learn.