Bounty Hunters are decent entry machine, while I have little experience personally with that line I have seen the Quick Draw and I know it will find silver. If you are looking to step up, keep an eye on the classified ads, and check out pawn shops. A pawn shop will not know much about a detector, they are in the business of buying and selling. The Garrett Ace series is a good starting point, I run an ATPro, but have had a few Garretts (much older) like the groundhog. Think about looking into Tesoro machines, the Silver Umax is a great little machine, I had one, light weight, single 9V battery, found gold and silver but the depth was questionable.
Do not limit yourself to any particular brand at this point, keep all options open.