Garrett is the house that innovation built and over the years one innovation after another has poured forth from this well of electronic wizardry - and their latest innovation, the new Pro-Pointer, is once again going to raise the bar for the competition. Unlike many boxy, akward, flimsy, hend-held pinpointers out there the Garrett PP is a sleek, slender, light, streamlined, ergonomically appealing little gem that fits the hand like a glove and is as handy as six fingers - plus it's tough as a tank. Its size and weight is 9 x1.5 inches and weighs a mere 7 ozs.
** FEATURES **
The PP is microprocessor controlled, non-motion all metal, with maximum sensitivity, requires no tuning or adjustment, features audible and vibrating alerts that increase in intensity the closer to the target it gets, has a simple on/off switch, an LED flashlight, 3.75 inch scraper/raker blade, and has side-scan capability. It will operate for 30 hours on one nine-volt alkaline battery and battery change is a piece of cake - just unscrew the end of the pointer, drop the old battery out and the new one in and it has a low battery alert. The PP can also be detuned over a target just like your detector. Has a working depth of two inches on coin-sized targets, more on larger objects. It can also be used to scan walls for any kind of metal. It comes with a nifty drop-in holster allowing you to whip it out like a six gun, shoot your target, and drop it back in the holster. It is classed as water resistant and can be used in the rain and rinsed off under running water. The wand can be submerged to just below the speaker.
** FIELD TEST **
I have been testing the prototype and production model over a period of a couple of months and have used it on many hunts in many situations. On one hunt in a park right after a rain the ground under the grass was quite muddy and the PP proved invaluable in locating coins in the gooey mud..I even retrieved a couple of coins from the mud at the bottom of a water puddle. Three coins that really lit my fire ( three silver Ben Franklin halves ) were recovered in bark chips in front of the swings in a local park. I got one of those wide signals that sound like junk so I whipped out the PP and scanned the area and got no signal at first, so I scraped off some chips and waved the pointer over it again and then got three separate signals. Those three finds really made my day.
I repeated this again in another playground when I got four different wide signals and checked them out with the PP. The first three turned out to be crushed pop cans buried in the chips which I traced with the PP and determined them to be such but the fourth signal was a horse of a different color. I scanned it with the PP and got three separate signals which turned out to be three quarters grouped together. At another park I located a fancy earring encased in a small clod. among a bunch of other small clods.
At another park I got another wide signal that was shallow so I whipped out the PP and scanned the area and got three signals ( and this is a lesson in target masking ). I removed the first target which was a bottlecap. The other two turned out to be a penny and a quarter. Together these three objects cancelled each other out and appeared as one object to the detector.
Finding a coin in the side of a hole requires a certain procedure. Since the wand on the PP picks up at a full 360 degrees you can stick the PP into the hole and get a signal but you will have no idea where the target is, so you pull the PP back out of the hole slowly until the signal just quits. This will give you the elevation of the target in the hole. You then angle.the PP and spiral the tip around the inside of the hole at that elevation until you hear and feel the strongest signal, then you have located the target
** SUMMARY **
I really like this pointer and it has proved invaluable in retrieving targets and saving time and frustration looking for coins in bark chips or soil that have turned the same color as the chips or soil. And locating your target quickly and accurately in mud is self-explanatory I feel Garrett has hit the bullseye on this one and produced a tool for the discerning treasure hunter. In all my hunts with the PP it never failed to perform as I thought it should perform and it is so easy to use, as handy as it gets, and is tough as nails.
The MSRP on the Pro-Pointer is $149.95 but there will be dealer discounts and specials, so watch for those. For more information contact your local dealer or the sponsors of this forum or you can contact Garrett directly at Garrett Metal Detectors, 1881 W. State Street, Garland, Texas 75042. You can call them toll free at 1-800-527-4011 or email them at
sales@garrett.com You can also visit their web site at www.garrett.com
I have included some pics of the PP and the three silver halves I recovered.
I especially like this one because it's so handy. It's not boxy and bulky like some of the others on the market.
Chicago IL (Schiller Park, Near O'Hare Airport)