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Is there a better choice of detector for wet/dry salt beaches?

B

Bill - De

Active member
I live 15 minutes from the ocean beaches here in Delaware, and have been using the CZ-20 there for many years. I also have a Coin$trike, which I have never used there (it does have a salt mode though). I have been having problems with both shoulders after an injury last year, and am thinking of getting a lighter weight detector. I belt-mount my CZ, so most of the weight is on my hip, but is there as good or a better choice in a lightweight machine for the beach (and some occasional land hunting)?

Will a T2, Omega 8000, F75 SE, etc. balance for the wet salt, for coins & rings?
 
Check out the Teknetics G-2. I have one and it works very good on the beach wet or dry and weights 2lbs. 9ozs. with the battery in it but it is not in the same league as your CZ 20 for beach hunting. Sorry to hear about your shoulders. Had my left one operated on and it is fine but now the right one acts up occassionally. You may find a lighter machine but not a better one. JMHO HH:minelab:
 
I have recently used a Fisher Gold Bug Pro with the 11" DD coil on saltwater beaches and in all metal mode it does go deep...maybe not as deep as a PI machine with a large coil, but it is lightweight (basically the same detector as the Tek G2 mentioned above). It finds stuff in the wet sand, but you do lose some depth....damp sand it still goes fairly deep, and it hits hard on small gold.
 
For dry sand hunting on beaches, the Garrett Ace 250 is the BOMB! You set it on Jewelry and dig everything when you hear a sound. Not very great on wet sand though. It is usable but you have to reduce the sensitivity to the point that 3-4" in depth is it. For the price a GREAT beach detector.
 
I have a BeachHunter ID from whites and took the 9.5 coil off and installed the Super 12 and mounted it on the lower arm backwards which i have not seen anyone doing but was told of this tip from the owner of treasure hunters in Ft Walton beach. I have been a member for a year now here on this forum and have learned alot of this hobby. I take my BHID with me on all vacations and where ever there may be water with a swim area. I have found targets a good 8 inches deep in the water and 10 to 12 in sand. I found a mens wedding band in the same swing path of a guy with a Garrett water machine that he missed. He later told me how he wouldn't like swinging a bigger coil and was more comforatable with his small coil and then i told him of the ring and that i can pin point just as accurate as his small. So i think that whatever machine you end up with you will get to know it well and get comforatble using it . There are alot of others and some better then others--alot of users think they have the best out there --it's just getting out there and looking for that big find. Good luck. HH
 
If weight is your biggest concern........then I would would go for the Ace 350....... works great on the dry sand...... not to good on the wet.............. and you can swing it all day with no fatigue.....there's a 79 year old lady at my beach that swings a ace 350 and she keeps right up with me and finds more good stuff than i do.

If you must have a wet sand /dry sand detector..... then the GT sovereign hands down...nothing comes close to it ...but get a big scoop because you will be working your shoulder.....digging 20 + inchs

Good luck HH
 
If you are using a CZ20, you will not be happy with a single freq detector in the wet sand ( Gold Bug, G2, Garrett 250,350,Tesoro,etc.). The Sovereign is just as heavy as your CZ 20 ( both can be hip mounted} Most Multi Freq detectors are heavy as are most P.I.s. IF you just want to hunt the dry sand any detector will work. The Gold bug pro and the G2 are light and both are really hot on gold. If you want a really light weight swinger check out the Detector Pro. My personal choice for a all round multi purpose LIGHT WEIGHT detector is the Gold Bug Pro or the G2, I can swing it all day and it is DEEP on gold. Tesoro also makes very light weight detectors with a LIFETIME warrenty
 
So not that far from you. In all honestly, the lightest detector I have used with very good results in the wet, salt sand, believe or not, is my Gold Bug SE ( which is probably equivalent in performance to the GB Pro or G2). I does balance in the wet salt sand, and has better than average depth and can hit low conductive targets. The only thing it is not, is water proof. In my areas ( up and down the NJ coast), I use the ground grab method to get the unit balanced fairly well, and then use the manual process to get it right on. When balancing in auto/ground grab, it balances somewhat on the positive side, so I then go into manual to get it spot on. I posted a YouTube video last year when I was on vacation in Long Beach Island showing how it can hit a fine 18K band and discriminate out a small, rusty nail. Hit the ring at about 7 inches in the wet sand.

You have all metal ID too, and that mode also shows your Fe, ground phase and ground balance numbers too. Cool feature.

One thing to know, is that deep targets in this environment will not bang hard and have a faint 'tick' type sound ( at least on my SE 2.9 version which has VCO audio). The Id will be off too, but if you hunt with it at discriminate level 20-21, you will not pick up nails or small rusty iron.

It works better than the Coin Strike, even with the CS in salt mode. Super recovery and separation too with the 11 inch DD. Only bad thing is, if you are hunting in dry sand, a lot of bottle caps will sound good and ID in the quarter range.

I run my CZ's mostly on the beach, but always take the GB too as it's just a light weight, super fast recovery unit that if I get to a spot with a lot of iron nails/bits in it, I take that out and it can always sniff out a few goodies the CZ won't due to it's concentric coil and it liking iron a bit.
 
Chest mount a Sovereign GT. The Sovereign is wonderful on the beach. Wet, Dry it doesn't matter. No ground balancing. No issues of digging or even listening to iron. And I hunt knee deep with it chest mounted.
 
goodmore said:
Chest mount a Sovereign GT. The Sovereign is" wonderful on the beach. Wet, Dry it doesn't matter. No ground balancing. No issues of digging or even listening to iron. And I hunt knee deep with it chest mounted".
Click to expand...
All this could be said about his CZ20 he is wanting to replace because of weight.
 
I have a shoulder problem on my left side. Probably a torn ligament. All I can say is SWINGY THINGY, google it.
 
You can hunt dry or wet with it. It's hot on gold as well, and coins to boot. I had the new Gold Bug DP with 11" coil and wasn't impressed at all. It would hit small gold pretty good but was horrible on coins...about 6 inches tops on a quarter in DISC mode and maybe 8-9 inches on a quarter in all metal mode. The battery life sucked too, with a 9 volt battery I got about 3-4 hrs before it had already dropped a segment in battery life. You'll get 7-8 hrs tops on a battery...so if you hunt much at all, you're looking at a lot in replacing batteries.

The AT is way more sensitive to coins, just as sensitive on small gold rings, and runs on 4 AA batteries. I have about 8 hrs on mine so far and it's not even dropped a segment in battery life. You also wont have to worry if you get it sprayed by the surf or even wanna take it for a dunk.
 
Thanks to all for your replies and suggestions. I will look into the swingy thing, and for a detector, I may like to try one of the Gold Bug SE or Pro (what's the diff between them??). My wife, who also hunts with me, has been using a Tesoro Cutlass II for 8 or so years, and loves it for the weight, as she also has bone-spur problems and a torn ligament, as do I. So she stays away from the wet sand. With a GB, she could hunt there as well as I, so that one sounds really good. An AT Pro might also be the ticket, but it probably weigs more than my CZ-20 with the box hip-mounted, so nothing to gain there, I would think. Maybe jsut stying with the weight on the hip-mount will have to be. That part is really not so bad, but it's just inconvenient at time when I want to lay the detector down, and be free of it for a few minutes, while I take a break. ALso under winter clothes is a bit of a pain, but everything in life is somewhat a compromise.

Again, thanks for the ideas.

Bill
 
I use a Tesoro Vaquero on Texas beaches(fairly mild) , hits small stuff down to 8"+ runs smooth in the wet stuff, except for the occasional small pocket of heavy mineralization. Sometimes I'll cut the sens to about4 and submerge the coil 4-6 ".
 
How does the ATPro compare to other VLFs in our mineralized soil? Didn't you have an Explorer once? How does it compare to that?
 
you could try a XP DEUS ,nothing is lighter ,its a featherweight and has a wet beach and dry beach programe .
control box can be worn on your arm and the backphones are wireless .
coil wont work under water though
 
Went to the orthopedic surgeon last Friday a week ago, and got a shot in the shoulder, a script for PT, and some advice on home PT. Been doing the PT, and have made big improvements... less pain, and more range of motion. Went to the beach a few times this past week, using the CZ-20 hip mounted, as I always have, and did pretty good (as far as pain goes.... not so good on the finds, lol)

I would like to find a Gold Bug SE, as has been suggested, and give it a try. I keep watchin the classifieds, but nothin yet. I did buy a new Sea Hunter II, a little lighter than the CZ hip-mounted, and gave that a try. Quite a different machine. Found some clad, no gold. No trash really, which surprised me... just one bottle cap. This was all in knee to waist-deep water; one hour hunt. Takes a lot of effort to swing a coil in the water.

Not so sure I shoulda got that SH, as it really is no better than my old reliable CZ-20.

Thanks for the help. Let me know if you know of a Gold Bug SE for reasonable.

HH
 
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