f 5 info

[ronburton]

Would like to hear the pros and cons of the F 5 from guys that use them. Mainly how it operates on wet salt beaches. Thanks, Ron B.

 

[WisconsinMD]

Hi ron I don't know if I can help or not but I will be trying out here in Florida east coast and west coast. I'll post what I find as soon as we get out to do some hunting. Right now its RAINING and blowing out a warm welcome for my friends and I to come see Florida hehe but hope my post can help u out. I'll be MDing in all metals mode so won't be commenting on disc mode since were new to the hobby were gonna dig everything that beeps or attempt to anyways lol so look for my post around Saturday or Sunday. Just hope to be able to go out tomorrow

 

[Mike Hillis]

Ron,
I don't hunt salt water beaches so I can't tell you about it's performance there. There have been some threads about that type of performance though. If you do a search for the F5 you should come across them.

It will find real small stuff with high positive threshold numbers in Disc mode with the stock coil. I would think it would be great for the dry sand. It will ground balance down into the salt range. However, with that being said, depth to low conductors will decrease if the GB is too close to zero based upon my air testing.

HH
Mike

 

[Joe_TNTX]

I've had my F5 about a year and really like it a lot. My previous experience with md was limited to occasional use of a Garrett GTAX 350. I really like the adjustability of the F5. I recently took it with me to the Isle of Palms beach near Charleston SC. It worked great in the dry sand for clad coins and even found a 50 caliber shell casing about 8" deep. I did find one little cheap bracelet, but no real nice jewelry finds , but it was Februrary. The wet sand was a real challenge for me and the F5. The F5 would ground balance, but as Mike said, the sensitivity to targets suffered. I could scan over the wet sand quietly, but found very few items. I tried both disc and all metal modes and only found one nickel about 5 or 6" down and a few lead weights. Being that this was my first trip ever with a metal detector to the beach, I will admit I was not very well prepared for the effect of the wet salt water. After hours of scanning near the water, I decided to put a coin in the wet sand and do my own tests. I could only detect a dime at best about 4" to 5" deep in the wet sand and in Feb, I just don't think there was much at that shallow depth.
I'm thinking about getting a detector that is designed for salt water for next time, but I still might take the F5 for the dry sand hunting. Being a dry land hunter, I even thought I could use my Garrett pinpointer in the wet sand. When I dug a hole , the salt water filled the hole. Putting my pinpointer down into the water, it sounded off. At first I thought it was the target, but after a while I discovered it beeped whenever It touched the salt water. This is probably something that experienced beach hunters already knew. I still use the pinpointer in the dry sand hunting, because my eyes aren't that great it sure speeds up the process.
Bottom line, if you are looking at the F5 primarily for wet sand hunting, you might want to reconsider. The F5 is a great general purpose detector, but unless there are some tricky settings I don't know about, you might be disappointed. Beaches might vary, but I think in general the salt water will be conductive.
HH Joe

 

[ronburton]

n/t