Which detector for the beach

Have just read a very intersted post from people using SD/GP/GPX detectors on the beach with small (14") DD coils with a lot of success.

I have been intersted in visiting my local beaches and didn't want to spend too much money on a beach machine that i am not going to use too often.
I currently own a GP extreme and have a 11" DD coil for it.. this is by far the cheapest option for me... i've already got it.

I have also been looking on ebay at Garrett ACE 250 and
Garrett 1350 GTP.

Being the tight ass i am, i don't want to spend a lot of money.

The areas i am thinking about visiting shouldn't have much crap as they are up on the high and dry sand most of the year.

Another option i was considering was a Minelab x-terra 305. if i went this option i would buy new. only for the fact people selling these 2nd hand are asking a price that is close to the price of a new machine.

Would love people's comments regarding this.

Would i be better off spending some money on a smaller size coil 8" or 10x5 for beach detecting so i don't get a stupid depth if using my GP detector.

Hi Goldbait, I have a X Terra 70 with very little use because my work commitment, now I have more free time, do you think is good enough for beach detecting?

Hi'ya g/b.......a good practical machine is the Garett A2B......you can pick one up for approx. $250......and when you decide to give up beach work or upgrade, then sell it on Ebay and get your money back !

well. i had decided to get a Minelab 305. But then that all changed when i decided to buy a Minelab GPX 5000.

so the specific beach detector has been put on hold for a while.

goldquest wrote:

Hi Goldbait, I have a X Terra 70 with very little use because my work commitment, now I have more free time, do you think is good enough for beach detecting?

hi
they work fine in the dry sand,
if there lots of black sand they can get noisey down in the wet sand if you don't set them to suit, if you can't get to run quiet on the wet sand, just stick to the dry sand
but yes there a lot of fun on the beaches for the whole family
cheers

i beach detect with a 705 and have no problems going from wet to dry sand or vise versa. It has a tracking beach mode which is very fast at compensating for the wet/dry sand changes.

However, i did start off detecting with an xterra30 and found heaps with that, but yes the dry to wet did become noisy so id just do the dry sand first and the wet later. But you find heaps in the dry sand cos thats where everyone sits so its good for coin and a little jewelry but the wet sand is hot for lost rings. The 30 has auto ground balance, and i hear the upgraded model 305 has a manual option now, which would be better. but its amazing how much more the 705 finds. My poor XT30 is gathering dust nowdays

I defy anyone to find a better beach/waters edge machine than the Garrett Infinium with the 8" Mono Coil...perfection..you can go into the water 200' deep if you have a mind..totally waterproof including headphones which used to come standard now an accessory...the whole rig is extremely light to carry..uses AA batteries so no down time...still Garretts' best machine IMO....and you can use as your secondary gold detector if its raining....I do,and have found a 2.1gr nugget, and have now been using the same Infinium since I got the first into Australia in 2003 Serial No1.....and they do upgrades to your Infinium same as the new models now produced..mine's had two upgrades to current new USA standard..$100 a pop...how does that stack against Minelab and having to buy another machine when you already have perfectly good everything except the latest chip......!....and my main detector is the GPX5000..
I honestly can see no downside to the Infinium as the ideal Beach detector....first couple of metres into the water is where their fingers shrink and bingo thats where the rings are....signals clear and loud......
No I am not a Garrett dealer or have any connection with them.....the Yanks cant make a top gold machine, but they certainly know how to make a 'Treasure' detector...Hoo Roo

Larry is right.. the Garrett LS is perfect for this style of detecting Minelab will have to take a back seat when it comes Treasure hunting on the Beach,
Garrett has is place in Metal detecting , and saltwater is it,, I hear a lot people say the Garrett cannot handle mineralized ground, and after i finish laughing my head off, I think you’re a idiot…
The Infiniun is designed for the saltwater and Australian conditions now, It’s a killer on the beach, gold/diamonds/ don’t stand a chance at 18inch, this Machine is lethal, useless on gold nugget under 3gram, but from 5 grams and up it, will keep up with the big guns.
But On the Beach Garrett LS has this one hands down

Montychops wrote: It’s a killer on the beach, gold/diamonds/ don’t stand a chance at 18inch,

Diamonds are non conductible, see Wikipedia, so you wont be finding diamond with any machine.

Edit:- Sorry, unless the diamonds are the rare blue colour.

im sure he meant diamonds in a gold setting

yes...diamond rings, i spose a should of made that a bit clearer, i just assumed everyone here knew there stuff..
And the fact not to many people go to the beach with a pocket full of diamonds anymore....lol

Montychops wrote:i just assumed everyone here knew there stuff..

Thats just the problem, I know my stuff.

Hi Brickie dont waste your time with expensive detectors, go for the bounty 505 pioneer its great.Last year on the beach with my mate and my kids i got about $1400.00 in coins + rings.And at least you can go for a swim later .

u already have an extreme???? Use it ...Why waste more $$$ I love my extreme on the beach, but i dont like digging bobby pins at 3 feet down.....

I use my 5000 with a 10x5DD running in normal, cuts the stupid depth out but can still get 15" easy on coins and rings.
i use the DD SO I CAN RUN DISC AT FLAT OUT....

So far no problems and the amount of coins and gold rings i find that the coin detectors cant reach
is unreal.....



Pete in WA

[quote="Montychops"]Larry is right.. the Garrett LS is perfect for this style of detecting Minelab will have to take a back seat when it comes Treasure hunting on the Beach,
Garrett has is place in Metal detecting , and saltwater is it,, I hear a lot people say the Garrett cannot handle mineralized ground, and after i finish laughing my head off, I think you’re a idiot…
The Infiniun is designed for the saltwater and Australian conditions now, It’s a killer on the beach, gold/diamonds/ don’t stand a chance at 18inch, this Machine is lethal, useless on gold nugget under 3gram, but from 5 grams and up it, will keep up with the big guns.
But On the Beach Garrett LS has this one hands down



Gday

I have been debating the pros and cons of the Garrett LS for beach use, and also the Minelab excalibur, I currently use a Sovereign gt which I have done well with so far, I have the standard 11" coil, an 8" coil and a 15" wot coil, I like to use the 15" coil on the beach for the ground coverage, what coils are available for the Garrett LS now?, I looked at them some years back and they only had I think two coil sizes available, and I was really mostly looking for a primarily gold detector anyway.

My thoughts were with the excalibur because I could still use the coils I have for the sovereign, which I would keep anyway, but the added bonus of the Garrett being a pi detector and being able to use it in the goldfields under some conditions also has an added appeal as well.

cheers

stayyerAU

Can I add my two cents worth, I would suggest a machine that has a digital readout as a bare minimum. It saves a lot of time. My Fisher F5 tells me exactly (within 2 to 3 numbers) whats under the coil.
Examples
5 cents = 27 -29 displayed
10 cents = 30 -32
20 cents = 40 -42
50 cent = 46 -49
$1 = 59 -61
$2 = 57 -60
Silver jewellery = Above 70
Gold jewellery is the only problem because it ranges from 25 up, but on a good beach with plenty of coins it's best to clear up all the coins then lower the discrimination and search for anything made of gold if you have time. Works for me.

What about an Äqua Snoop"from Goldhunter Detwctors & how much is a 2nd hand one worth, please?

Hi all,
I guess you could say this is my first post on the Down Under page. I am from Ohio, USA and am a GPX 4500 user.
I haven't been to your Great country, but sure would like to try my luck at detecting for some gold their.

As for a good water detector on the beach, I really like my Minelab X-terra 70. Although you can only go into the water
not very far. Boy 'ol Boy can you ever tell what the target is by the numbers. If you hit something in the number 16 range, DIG IT. Well actually I dig it all, cause I am used to my Tesoro Tiger Shark that has no read out, so you just dig everything. Now this detector, the Tiger Shark, I don't think is that good in Black Sand.

I also have a Garrett Infinium and also love to use it here in the USA. I usually go by the bobbie pins, if I am digging them, I will dig a nice ladies small gold ring and necklaces and bracelets.

Now that I have said all that, someone mentioned a Garrett ACE 250, the first year I had mine which was back in 2006, I dug over 4,000 coins with it. That did not include the 300 silver coins and 6 pound cannon ball I found with the ACE 250. I do have a pic of all those finds if anyone doubts me, LOL. I know guys who use this detector on the beaches on the East coast of Flordia.

By the way, I use my GPX 4500 for hunting Civil War Relics in Virginia!

hi Ringfinder and welcome to the forum it would be good if you could post some of your finds in the members finds bit of the forum as people are always interested in seeing what other members find and at times the unusual things they find cheers Terry

G'day Ringfinder & welcome! Kate from Sth Australia here ... nice ta meet ya!

Thank You Terry, I will post some pictures later. I have been cutting wood all day and am a bit tired.

Thanks for the reply,
Denny

TTT wrote:hi Ringfinder and welcome to the forum it would be good if you could post some of your finds in the members finds bit of the forum as people are always interested in seeing what other members find and at times the unusual things they find cheers Terry

getascripter wrote:G'day Ringfinder & welcome! Kate from Sth Australia here ... nice ta meet ya!

Thank You Kate, I love the flag! Nice to meet you too!

G.K. wrote:What about an Äqua Snoop"from Goldhunter Detwctors & how much is a 2nd hand one worth, please?

Aquasnoop is not to flash on salt beaches, it will work ok in the dry sand but in the wet it will loose a lot of depth. I used one for a short time and found stuff in the dry sand but in the water(salt) it drove me nuts with ground noise from the salt and was only getting around 3 or 4 inches depth on coins. It is quite good as a parks and gardens/playground type machine and I guess for the price it does a fair job.

I've only tried beach detecting once, Newcastle NSW, with a Whites GMT, it wasn't a huge success, got a few coins and the usual rubbish. The GMT worked well on the dry sand and not to bad on the damp sand, but when you got near the wet sand, which is where I wanted to get to find lost rings etc along the waters edge it was way noisy.

I concluded this isn't the right detector for beach wet sand detecting, would like to try againg one day with a more suitable detector for the job.

cheers dave

Xtrerra 705 has my vote.

Found this small chain infresh water river  dry sand with a Gold Bug Pro and 5 x 10 S.E.F. DD.
Tid was 41 and signal was strong at approx 6 inches.
     The charm weighs 1.1g and the chain is 2.29g both are 9ct gold.
Tested this item with my Sea hunter, Inf, Safari and SST and Vallon VMH3CS.
      The Inf with 8 inch mono gave a fair Hi Low at 4 inches, The safari gave a reasonable low tone at 4 inches, The Sea Hunter did not respond, The SST gave a weak low tone in the foil  range at approx 6 inches. The Vallon gave a reasonable and sharp response at approx 4 inches with Sens a couple of notches down from max.
The Gold Bug produced  by far the strongest response with a TID in the low  gold range.
Make of that what you will

Gday Adrian ss thanks for your report good as always. So reading into that and the history of detectors I reckon the gold bug pro would be a good choice for my eleven year old grandson. Its light and can be used on beach in parks and on mullock heaps and affordable for a little grownup what do you reckon.
Regards big fella

Yes the GB Pro is a nifty machine and will adjust to a fairly short length.  I am 6 foot 2 in and the max extension of this tecta is Just enough for me.
The Bug has plenty of info on the TID display screen and has adjustable iron tone break point that is very useful in Disc mode as well as full TID in the All metal mode and this mode will Gb from moderate iron minerals to wet salt beach sand. The DP Pro has Manual and Auto ground Grab/Balance and as you work from the dry sand into the wet you need to hit the ground grab button occasionally.
The Disc mode is not good over wet salt beach sand. There are other tectas that can match the Bug Pro but either way you go the Pro is a great little machine.
If you do get this detector then be sure to have the 11 inch DD for the beach. I am using a S.E.F. 5 x 10 DD which is performing very well. The 11 in standard elliptical will achieve a bit more depth and ground coverage.  I have found 20 cent coins at better than 18 inches in damp beach sand with this coil.
   If you intend detecting in parks where permitted then I suggest winding the sensitivity down below 50%, that way you will not be digging deep holes.
When I detect picnic grounds and public parks I set my tectas to give moderate response to 1 dollar coins at 4 to 5 inches. The Bug will go way deeper than that but I see no point in digging big holes in lawns n flower beds.

There are some Chinese copies of this detector getting about.
I have no idea how well they work but they look indistinguishable from the USA made items.

Gday and thanks again for a great reply. Have a good one.
Regards big fella