want to buy a metal detector

[Nhill]

My brothers and I want to go in and buy my dad a metal detector for Christmas. I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions on where to start, what brand, features to look for, or anything else.
He has never had a metal detector, and probably won't be looking for anything specific. We would probably like to stay in the $200-300 range.
Any help would be appriciated.

 

[Hogbear]

The Fisher F2 is the latest/greatest entry level machine in the $200 range. Early feild reports is that it's a little deeper than the Garrett Ace 250 with 0-99 discrimintion scale and you get two search coils included for $200.

The Tesoro Silver Umax is a good one too. It doesn't have a target ID meter but it has a very good discriminatin circuit and it's very well made with a lifetime guarantee. http://www.southern-treasures.com/silver_page.htm

Southern Treasures is a Fisher dealer too so even though the new F2 isn't listed on the site yet, he may be getting them in stock. This guy has them in stock: http://www.findmall.com/read.php?44,612196


I have a Garret Ace250 which isn't a bad detector for $200 but the F2 looks like a better deal. If you're more of an analog-type guy who doesn't like lots of tones and numbers to look at, the dead simple Tesoro is a good simple machine to learn.

 

[Hogbear]

This dealer is pretty close to you and carries both Fisher and Tesoro so maybe you can get a chance to check out the F2 and Silver uMax in person.

http://www.detectordepot.com/

 

[Nhill]

thanks for your help hogbear. I will go check them out.

 

[Crow Terminator]

As a general rule of thumb with detectors (and I've owned just about every one of them on the market to date) here's a few basic rules:

1. If you are wanting to keep it simple and probably not going to use a whole lot, you don't need all the target ID stuff and such. A simple turn on and go Tesoro will be sufficient.

2. If you are going to be coin hunting in like school yards and parks, something like the Ace 250 or F2 or F4 will be really good. The Minelab X-Terra 30 is probably the better of all those for that type of hunting. With the X-Terra 50 being more expensive but offering more bank for the buck.

3. If you are going to be relic hunting for Civil War stuff and alike items, than depth is more important than ID and all that stuff. There are a few units I would recommend for it, but some of the higher end Tesoros are great for relics and relatively cheap in price. Most people these days are hunting with either a Whites MXT, Fisher F-75, Minelab Explorers, and Nautilus IIbs. They all pack very hard punches but the F-75 is the latest and greatest that is getting a BUNCH of great reviews right now. I just committed to buying a used one myself. They will run you around $930 new but I got mine for $650 used.

Hop over to www.thetreasuredepot.com and check out their classifieds. They do a really good job of weeding out the crooks and you can find really exceptional units for great prices. Detectors don't retain very high resale values and most guys will try one out for a while and sell it to get something else to try. I've got many almost brand new machines for $300 less than they cost new.

 

[Hogbear]

So...did you ever get a detector?

I got a chance to play around with a Fisher F2 and use it next to my Ace 250 today and now that I've used both, I think the Ace is the better machine. They both will hit about the same depth from what I saw but the ID numbers on the F2 get very unreliable on coins deeper than about 3". The Ace correctly ID's coins down to 5" with no problems.
The F2 was better at IDing my wedding band at 4" than the Ace was, but the Ace won every time for coins. Of course they all can be fooled by aluminum trash at times and you're better off just digging everything you can stand to anyway. The free small coil on the F2 is nice but based on what I saw today, I'd recommend the Ace 250 or the Silver uMax over the Fisher F2.

 

[Crow Terminator]

The Ace 250 is a great machine for the money, no doubt. I found some silver coins with the one I had in a site I had pounded with various other machines. Garretts have just always been good with finding silver. The only thing I didn't like about the 250 was the bell tone on the coins. I like a fast recovery speed in a detector and the bell tone killed that for me. If you got into a patch of coins...which often you do at school yards or ball fields...than it made it really hard to pinpoint the location of each specific coin when the coins were really close together. The bell tone thing would have been better off as a feature you could turn on or off. I'd of probably kept mine if it had that feature available on it.

I am REALLY liking the F-75. It's not a school yard coin machine though but I've hunted A LOT of machines and this one has me grinning on every time out for relics.

 

[Nhill]

Yes, I bought the ACE-250 from the guy in Seymour. My dad really likes it. I think I am going to get one too. My plans were to borrow it from him, but he isn't ready to let go of it yet. The most valuable thing he has found so far is a penny, but he hasn't ventured out of the yard yet. I took it out to a field beside their house, and in their yard. It is amazing how much junk is burried all over the place! I really makes you think about all the things that went on before we were here.

Ohh yea, about 3 years ago he swore up and down that I borrowed one of his hammers and didn't give it back. He found itin his yard too. He said the head was about 3" deep, but the end of the handle was close to ground level. Pretty cool how something can sink in that short amount of time.

Thanks for your help in selecting a metal detector. this is something we will all enjoy for a long time.

 

[Hogbear]

One thing I found with the Ace is that it gets unstable with the sensitivity all the way up in most places I've tried. I usually get better results with it set just over half around here but it can vary with the soil and the amount of trash. Basically if I'm getting lots of false signals and it's reading trash as good targets I turn down the sensitivity. It still gets good depth with the sens turned down.
Garret makes a small 4.5" Sniper coil for the Ace that really works well in very trashy areas. With the standard coil you can get several targets under the coil at the same time and they combine to mask each other out or give a false reading. The small coil is more likely to have only one target under it so it's easier to get the correct ID. You wouldn't want to use it to cover a large field because it sweeps such a small area per pass, but for places with lots of metal trash, it can really isolate those good targets. You can also use it close to fences or metal posts without it going crazy. It's about $70 or so but I think it's worth it if you have to deal with lots of trash close together. They also make a big 9x12 coil for more depth and coverage in places with little trash but I've never tried that one.
I got some headphones with an inline volume control for about $12 at Radio Shack since the Ace doesn't have a volume control. A lot of detectorists use really expensive headphones and they make sense with some detectors that have a threshold give you lots of information through varied tones but the Ace bell tone is basically on/off without a lot of subtleties so any headphone with volume control will do. I already had an adapter for the 1/4" jack but Radio Shack has those too.

 

[Nhill]

I took the ACE 250 out today for the second time and found a 1944 wheat penny beside an old abondoned house. I know its not a great find, but it is the first valuable thing I have found, and I am excited. Looking at the shape of the house, this was probably a pretty new penny when it was occupied. Hopefully there are more older coins, but I think they were pretty poor, so they may have held on to their money pretty tight.