DetectingWales.com

Hello chaps, after using an Ace 250 for nearly a year I decided to flog it on, was getting cheesed off with digging pull-rings, bottle tops, bleeping like a nut only to find nothing and awful recovery times. So its time to get the wallet out  :o

My budget is £300 to maybe £350, I want something with good iron rejection, depth is not so important 7" will do me - depth that is.... SO

Is it gonna be a Tesoro, C-Scope or XP I'm open to all suggestions please thankyou  :)

For that money there are some good second hand Minelabs around. though heavier they do the business with a great build quality.

Dusty you need to  consider where you'll be detecting. If you plan on detecting beaches and wet sand you probably want to look at a minelab. Tesoro's dont do wet sand very well, if at all?

You know guys I'm half tempted to breakout the CC and get a Etrac..... but Jesus begorra are they pricey!

Lets be honest, cards on the table - do they 'really' warrant those prices £800 - £1299  :o   ???

I bought a second hand Explorer II for £350 and it served me well for 4 years, it found me a lot of stuff on clean ground, very deep machine,but now I need to send it to Minelab for a service.

To be honest with you ...NO. :o they are a superb Detector, but the price is artificially inflated by the manufacturer, The trouble is they have us over a barrel, you either pay the money or go without, i decided life's too short, went for interest free credit and got the best deal i could.
I'll warn you now though, you'll still be digging Ring pulls and foil and bottle tops, or you risk missing the good stuff, as for my E-trac, she found me my Fourth Ring, all from Pasture today ;), add that to my other finds i've had, if i decided to sell them, i may just break even, Trouble is, i never would,its not about the money for me, so she will always owe me £1200 ;)
 remember, when your dead, its for a long time,and you don't have pockets in a coffin ;) If you can get one without bankrupting yourself, why not, Check out some other machines though before you commit to that sort of outlay, Good luck.
Salty :)

Not wrong there Salty, long time dead an all!!

What I don't understand is why even with such an expensive detector would we still end up digging pull rings and other rubbish?

Anyway its all dependent on either getting 0% credit (HA!) or a shop doing a very good cash/debit card deal.... lets be honest, they cant sell many at that price and we all still in the crunch... lets hope Joan takes pity on me lol  ;D

EDIT, just outta curo what haave you found with your E-Trac Salty?

Hi Dusty, My comment on the ring pulls etc, is based on, no matter what fancy discrimination you have, the damn things sit exactly where some hammered coins/ Jewelry do (as well as other good stuff), so whilst you can selectively scrim out one particular type of object, you run the risk of missing a good find, Today for example,i had probably my 15 signal @ 12.35 (this the ferrous/conductive readout) with a good tone from the E-trac, all the others were shotgun cartridge back ends, i came very close to saying Blow it (well not those exact words but you know what i mean ;) ) i dug it, twas a ring :), i could have scrimmed out those shotgun cases and never been bothered by them all day, but i'd have missed that ring ;)
You got to dig the junk to get the good stuff i'm afraid, i by heck i've dug my share of junk ;) ;D
Salty :)

Ha nice!

Dont want to pester but whats your honest view on this detector compared to others you have used?

Thanks bud!!!!!

Minelabs can be a bit odd if your not used to Multi tone machines, a bit like R2D2 on acid ;) But it doesn't take long to get used to that, They are awesome on the beach/wet sand, incredibly stable and Deep (dont get too hung up on the depth thing with a detector though ;) ), Fantastic battery life, good range of accessory coils, the pro coil it comes with is very sensitive, i'm forever digging .22 rimfire bullet heads and small bits of bronze, they tend to cope with overhead powerlines very well, dont trigger on "hot Rocks" (though i can alter the settings on mine to do so ??? ) all in all an excellent tool, a bit heavy after a while. I am looking at a Deus (ref to dead a long time lol) i wont be parting with my E-trac though, the Deus is for covering large areas quickly and ease of transport. The -e-trac is not to be rushed to get the best out of it ;)
Salty

Hi Dusty

Ive bought Minelabs for years
But going by the reviews  (especially the Explorer range) i dont know of any other detector manufacturer that has an almost 50/50  split in people who love them and people who hate them.

I read the review and put it down to people not reading the instruction but im my case i fully understood the machine (had an Exp 2 for 2 years) but i just didnt like using it. i found it to heavy (NO IM NOT A WIMP OR CONFUSED LOL  :P)
And the recovery rate bored me to tears
sometimes in very trashy areas an over sensitive machine can be a nightmare and the slow recovery rate only makes matters worst.

I got advised to look at the Fisher F75 by a very good friend and im so glad i did,
 Its high tec but very intuitive and understandable and your not far behind the Explorer Depth wise, plus youll find more targets per day than anyone using an EXP the recovery rate of the F75 is ledgenary

Have a look at the reviews you wont find many if any bad reviews and it seems that once youve got an F75 youll only sell it to get a Teknetics t2 which it a very similar machine

I bet your confused now lol
Good Luck with your quest ;0)

The Fisher f75 and the Teknetics T2 have got a bit of a cult following at the moment
I bought a new one from Joan Allan for £650 but looking at the mags latley they are going for a lot more now
But they generally sell for £400+ used



all the best
Phil

Hi all, interesting post this, I have always had an explorer, but recently i got hold of a T2. The T2 is lighter faster etc, but i do have a gripe with it 1st one hot rocks, they turn up anywhere between 44 and 55 sometimes higher, some give a damm good signal even when ive walked all around the target. Also i had sussed the SE out for deep finds with the faint signals etc, I havnt with the T2 let me explain, i get a faint signal showing 55 ish one way change the angle and its gone, now is that a deep signal? or one of those rocks, so far everytime its been a rock but you see where im coming from. I went out yesterday on some new land and decided to do an experiment comparing the T2 and the SE, If Lisa had a deep signal we marked it with a flag and me the same, when we got about ten flags out we compared them. she picked everyone of my signals except two (because they were hot rocks we checked) but the T2 failed with 6 of hers and in my opinion wernt that deep. ( they turned out to be buttons). Now maybe my T2 is faulty i dont know but it has nowhere near the depth of the se. I will be doing more tests try and find something near iron etc

Ha, should have had a tenner on that - you would have won lol!!

My head hurts now, SO much choice and all much of a much. Don't know much about the Teknetics although I have been looking at a Teknetics Omega 8000 secondhand for £359, good machine or not I don't know? As for the Fisher F75 I don't know much about this one either.......

Now I'm on 2 minds whether to leave the E-Trac for now and try one of the suggested detectors?

Confused!!!!

Dusty i dont know if your in a detecting club but my advice would be to join one there you would meet other people with different makes of machine that i am sure they would be willing to let you try them out before you buy one there is more to detecting than just minelabs (and i use a minelab) take your or it could be a costly mistake  :)

Very true! Might just have a mooch out today, have a look at whats on offer. One question you guys might be able to answer, alot of the YouTube vids feature an additional wand people use for pinpointing - do these come with the Minelabs or an extra?

Cheers all!

All extras but remember cash is king a get a good deal  ;)

Hi Paul

We had a test bed at The Rare Birthday token hunt last summer
All sorts of good and bad targets where buried no more than 6 inchs
You were asked would you dig or not and what did you think the item was.
One of the top machines was a Fisher 1236x2 finding 99% of the targets that cost the owner  £100 to buy.
Non of the Explorers including mine found every target and it was the main reason I went looking for another Machine,


I generally run my fisher very hot,(all metal and high sens in Disc no higher than 4) but its not something i could do all day long,very much like the Explorers it takes a lot of concentration to get the most out of the machine,

I Think it doesnt really matter how much you pay,if you dont get on with the machine your
lost before your start
My good friend Alan the past finder uses a Fisher hes had over 10 years and if i get a fraction of the finds hes got in my life time i,ll very happy.

In not Knocking the Explorers coz in the right hands and on the right soil conditions they are brill.
I just found using one not as fun as some machines ive owned in the past.

all the best
Phil
 

I settled for a GM3, as soon as I fire it up @ home ill let you guys know how it performs.

Generally speaking I was impressed by its no BS - bells and whistles carp. What did impress me is a nice crisp signal at 8.5" on a £1 coin, not air test in the ground test! Iron rejection seems pretty good, a silver coin and a nail together and only a faint signal from the nail compared to a nice loud chirp from the coin.

Having said all that its still the honeymoon period!

Lets get detecting  ;D

Phil , i'll have an F75 or T2 for £400, bring it to the club i'll have the cah ....lol

HAVE YOU SEEN THE S/HAND PRICE £650 PLUS

Yeah i know crazy in it
Middle of last year when i bought one i Paid £650 for the limited Edition (not the LTD) and that came with accessory's

I couldn't find a used F75 anywhere only T2,s and they was around 400 450
Few weeks ago on ebay a second hand T2 went for over a £1,000

I think i remember Saxonman telling me he only Paid £450 for a new one years ago
I wont part with mine  might get a LTD in the future coz i like the camo effect  lol   
 
 

Not sure I like this GM3  :-[

I'm about to buy a new detector, yet the xp range has never interested me , i don't know why, i'm now looking into a Whites matrix m6,   Tesoro lobo super traq,   or even a Teknetics omega 8000 with 11" dd coil, good luck with the gm3.

having used an xterra 50 for many years, i have found it to be very versatile on both sand, pasture and plough soil. however with mrs h using a garrett 250, she has been picking up deeper signals which the xterra 50 doesn't detect.

i have one field which is very very mineralised which sends the xterra 50 nuts, no matter how much one reduces discrim or sens. so i got an exp 2 specifically for that field and to date have had well over 50 roman coins from it. the xterra found 3.

i endorse the xterra 50, but the garrett 250 is deeper.

but what do i know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike what put me off the Xp range was you cant get them stable on wet sand and theres no meter.
I dont work well with audio so i needed a good Digital ID machine. I had a go of an M6 and i found the meter very misleading

all the best
phil

ANYONE INTERESTED,HAVE A GARRET 250 ACE FOR SALE.....150  00......WITH SPARE COILS...BAG..PAID 249...00...FOR IT LAST YEAR.HARDLY USED,AND GREAT STARTER MACHINE OR SPARE...ASK BYRON???   

 Byron Bagged a Large Roman coin in the 1st hour of having a lend Jammy Bugger ! lol

DONT REMIND ME PHIL......SEE YOU LATER GWIL.

I was as sick as a parrot that day  >:(
Im not  saying where it was but
I was yards away from where a Stunning Roman silver coin was found.
Then i trusted my instincts and followed my nose totally in the oppersite direction to where everyone else was picking up coins from a scattered Roman Bronze hoard ;0(
I found nothing all day them Byron said he found a huge Bronze Roman with a borrowed Garrett off you ;0(
I was happy for him naturally  Grrrrrrrr lol

What size coils have you got with the Garrett Gwil ????

standerd and small.bring it up tonight.......gwil.

Dusty don't be put off mate. The be all and end all of it is no matter what machine you use.There will be compromises. You need to do what i did and narrow the Field down a bit.When i fist started i assumed the more expensive the machine the better my finds rate will be. WRONG!!!!!!
Dusty before you splash out any money.Try a few Give them a road test so to speak.
Ask yourself these questions?

1  Where do you intend to use detector land or beach or both.

2  Your price range

3 New or secondhand

I myself use a minelab explorer se pro.worth  £ 1200 bought for £ 580 secondhand as new. i purchased several machines and sold them all because i was not making any nice finds. people with basic detectors seemed to make some great finds. whats the secret ?
it is simply DISCRIMINATION or More precisely the lack of it.
the more discrimination the more good stuff  WILL BE LOST!!!!!
Knock out ring pulls you may lose coins maybe jewelery.
Try as many machines as you can.
And Join a club  :)
                                                                   

Cheers for that Ozzy!!!

I came to realise that I am really still in my detector infancy and a no BS tone detector that does 10"+ is just not suitable for me at the mo - I'm still far to wet behind the ears to run that sort of machine. So the GM3 went back and for a split second had a moment of utter madness and got a Minelab SE second hand for £480 - shocking I know, it was either that or buy a E-Trac on credit and have 24 weeks in a mental institution. I know from some months back when I was researching detectors the SE was pretty good and only second to the E-Trac (I think) and for me the whole vibe of the SE is better for me - but alas, only time will tell.

I really don't want to give up on detecting, my old 250 found me a few finds and although nothing special its a BUZZ finding things...  :)

Hi all, Thought I'd put my (amateur) 4 pennorth in.

I have a CScope 1220XD which is great for fast scanning and picks up loads of small bits of copper and bronze but goes absolutely bonkers when scanning in an iron contaminated soil. It gives the same signal for a big piece of rusty iron as it does for a small gold ring. I checked.

I have an extensive collection of big rusty horseshoes, chisels, steel bolts and plow bits to prove it.

Mine was (and is) on an ebay dealers site at £266 brand new from the manufacturer, but is on sale now for £366 in most magazines.

There you go, an unbiased opinion ;)

Eric

Don't get caught in the trap of thinking that changing machine will mean you will find more - it is often not the case.

I have 3 machines and all very different. Does any single one find more than the other?, NO. Each one has it strengths as well as its weaknesses.

Interestingly, Someone I know seems to pull more decent stuff from the ground than me and he uses an ACE250. Why does he find more than me?, I really think that it is a case of his machine being so simple to use he just digs a lot more whereas with a more complicated machine with bells and whstles, you end up wondering whether or not that bell and whistle is telling you to dig it or move on. Metal detecting when distilled to its basic essence, is a machine that tells you somthing other than iron is in the ground and that you need to dig it up to find out what it is. All the claptrap about depth meters, display screens and other associated bumf is just that, bumf.

Years ago, i got caught in the 'upgrade trap' and spent £2k on machines trying to find the one that found the most- I never did find that holy grail of detecting as it doesn't exist, other than in manufacturers marketing...................

I sold a few machines and eventually settled on my 3 listed below and i'm happy with that mix as they each do something very well.

Don't forget that in a Gold Rush, the only guys making any money are those selling the picks and shovels, and in this case, the picks and shovels are sold by metal detector manufacturers.

Anyone ever found a BAD review of a new detector in a  ;)magazine...

I need to get my post number up to allow PM's to be sent without authentification, so here we go with my twopennies worth!
I agree whole heartedly, all the machines mentioned and recommended have their good and bad points and whatever the machine if you go over it and hear a signal which is within the range of the detector and in an accepted discrimination range,you've got to dig it.

There is no perfect machine, we all think our detector is the best - you just need to find one, which suits you, is within your budget and then learn how to use it and stick with it.

Good luck with your search

used T2, or  goldmaxx power or a really deep golden mask 3,  All exellent detectors

Your right Jon ive never read a negative report in the Searcher or TH
When i review a machine im thinking of buying I goggle it.

As for buying a machine if your not sure a detectors for you, buy a used one so if you dont get on with it you can sell it for the same price you paid for it and if you buy wisely you could even make a few quid ;0)

How you getting on with the GM3 ?

I had the Gm3 and GM3+ and it was a lovely turn on and go machine with no bells and whistles.

One of the better non metered machines I've used alongside the XP range.