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Garrett Sea Hunter Mark II PI

A

Anonymous

Guest
Would like to hear from someone who has used one. Am seriously considering buying one in a few weeks to use for gold prospecting. I like the fact that you can vary the delay as a discriminator and it was tested under the worst black sand conditions. And it can be had for less than $600!!!
I called Garrett and the guy I talked with told me that it wouldn't see a nugget smaller than a matchhead. That's more than exceptable to me as I wouldn't want spend my effort digging for anything smaller!
Randy Seden
Simi Valley,CA.
 
Randy, I have used many Garrett products and as a general rule they perform well for the price. The exception to that rule is some of their lower end products which do not perform well and are difficult to tune or use. Garrets beach PI unit falls into that problem. I used one over a year ago and was not impressed with the units performance VS cost. Eric Foster's BeachScann MK2 is the best light weight performer PI unit on the market for around $600. This unit has great dept and signal stability, which the Garrett lacks. Additionally, I have found this unit to be very sensitive to gold and I am also using it to propect for gold nuggets in rivers. I also own a Minelab GP extreme as well and other types of detectors. Simple put Eric's designs are the best out there for the price. If you have any further questions I would be happy to answer them. HH
 
in my opinion.I owned one and you really cant use the disc= you lose depth right away and sensitivity to small gold.Even without the disc being used, it's not one of he better pi units.
 
Hi Randy,
I haven't used a Garrett PI recently so I will not comment on them, but I have put the little Beachscan through the paces in gold country.
Most of my hunting was in the Gold Basin AZ area but I did spend some time down around Rich Hill also.
What I found is the Beachscan works extremely well in areas with black sand. It ignores most hotrocks also so many of the wild "bangs" you get from hotrocks with a VLF are gone.
Generally this little machine, as it comes out of the box, performed quite well and will pick up a match head size nugget easily.
The worst case conditions were those around Rich Hill where there was a lot of deep red rich clay. Under those conditions I found if I just raised the coil a little I could hunt red clay areas with few problems also.
You can adjust the delay to check a target to see if it is a suspected gold object also. By turning the delay to maximum, most gold nuggets will be ignored as will 22 shell casings and pieces of lead. Most iron objects will still give an audio signal. The exceptions are parts and pieces of old rusty cans. They will do whatever they please.
One has to remember a $600 isn't a $3000 unit, but I was surprised how sensitive the Beachscan was when comparing to one of the more expensive machines.
Like most nuggethunters, I have looked for ways to "boost" the horspower so to speak of my detectors including the little Beachscan and have come up with a few ideas that work quite well. One has to remember when making changes, the warranty will probably be voided though. Most of the changes I made do not require tremendous skill, but do require good soldering techniques.
One of the real plusses of the Beachscan is its light weight. That will really spoil you.
I guess what I am trying to say is the Beachscan is a hard machine to beat in the price range you are looking.
I hope this helps.
Reg
 
Chuck,
Good point and I agree. Their PI unit is a very low end unit and the disc feature is very poor. Take care.
 
Reg and all,
Thank you for your wise advice! I called Surfscanner and talked with Bill today and can hardly wait to place my order! Wow, I didn't for some dumb reason think about the Eric Foster line of PI's,somebody slap me please!
Again much thanks to you all for preventing me from making a very poor purchase and showing me the right way!
Randy Seden
 
Randy, your very welcome. Welcome to Bill & Eric's PI club. With these machines you won't go wrong. Good Hunting,
 
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