Bounty Hunter Copy Of A Whites Detector?

[Suninyourhand]

I have seen in the Big 5 (California Sporting Goods Retailer) weekly newspaper ads detectors sold under the brand name of "Famous Trails." The models are clearly manufactured by Bounty Hunter for this retail chain similar to what they did for Walmart with the "Pioneer" line, etc. One of the Famous Trails models is called an "MD 9300" and appears to be a copy of one of Whites models though I am not familiar enough with all of that brands various units to know which one it is. What is neat about this unit is that it seems to have a fairly sophisticated manual ground balance circuit that might allow for enough adjustment range to make its use in the gold or mountain areas practical. I don't know what frequency it operates on, but if it can be manually ground balanced like the older detectors it might just make do as an economical gold detector. I was curious has anybody used one of these or have any knowledge about how well they work? They can be bought new for around $199 at Costco's, etc. Digital Universe has them for $149. http://www.diguniverse.com/OUTDOOR-PRODUCTS/ELECTRONICS-OTHER/FTSMD9300.html Famous Trails may use other manufactures in addition to Bounty Hunter to supply them with detectors and that may account for this particular model. But if Bounty Hunter is manufacturing a copy of a Whites detector I thought that would be kind of neat. Made me curious. I knew it was too good to be true.....found this....http://www.findmall.com/read.php?18,927299,927724

 

[slingshot]

I used to switch coils on my Tracker with the White's coils.

 

[Dave J.]

The only connection between Famous Trails and Bounty Hunter is that we compete in the same marketplace.

Since Famous Trails is a competitor of relevance, several years ago we bought a machine which was a knockoff of a White's. Probably that same one pictured in this thread. To our surprise, it worked quite well, though I'm not familiar enough with the corresponding White's model to say that the copy equalled the original. They hadn't bothered with reverse engineering-- they literally copied the White's PC board artwork.

--Dave J.
Chief Designer, FTP-Fisher (The FT is First Texas, mfr. of BH-- not FT for "Famous Trails"!)

 

[GoGoGopher]

Looks a LOT like the old White's 5900 or 6000 series detectors...???

HH,

 

[Suninyourhand]

I checked the Big 5 flier and the Bounty Hunter detector is called an "Elite." They did not include the Bounty Hunter brand name in the description for some reason. But they do list the brand name of "Famous Trails" in the description of the MD9300 detector which allowed me to assume the Bounty Hunter type unit was made by Famous Trails. I never think of the intials "FT" when I think of Bounty Hunter, I was just going off of the look of the Elite model and the incomplete description. Thanks for the information on the operation of this detector.

 

[hans4u22003]

i have a famous trails detector got it from walmart but mines called neptune its good for water up to 130 feet deep also have ace 250 and bh ex