Ace 250?

[jgraves0000]

Hello, just looking for some advice, I'm new to MDing, I went out and bought an Excalibur II mainly b/c I thought I would be taking it in the water. I do mostly beach hunting but find the Excalibur to be a little spratic and very hard to tell the sounds apart. So I mostly hunt in all metal. Well on my fifth hunt with the excall the Disc/pinpoint nob striped out. So it's off to mind lab for repair. I'm thinking I should have not spent to $$ on this machine and I'm thinking of just getting a 250 and selling the excall when I get it back next year. I've been seeing a lot of good reviews on the 250, and how can you beat the price. Will I out grow this machine? That was my fear when got into hobby and why I spent 1,300 on the excall. All I really want to do is walk the beach find some coins and maybe a ring or two. Maybe I just answered my own question. Any advice on the 250 would be appreciated. Thanks, HH

 

[BigCatDaddy]

Did the knob strip or the pot? If it's just the knob, you can easily get a replacement. If it's the post going into the pot, off she goes to Minelab. You have to be very gentle with the Excal knobs. Mine never comes out of Disc...period. Now as far as the 250 goes, she'll do just fine in the dry sand. Wet sand will require a little tweaking. You will probably want to get the 10x 14 DD coil to help with the salt in the wet sand and to cover more turf. Frankly, I would put up a couple hundred more bucks and get the AT Pro. Already running a DD coil and has a manual ground balance the the 250 does not have that will also help mitigate the salt effects.

 

[gordygroover]

For what you are wanting to do the Ace will do ya just fine.
Actually a gigantic number of machines will work well in that kind of aplication and the 250 may even be more than you need.
Will you ever out-grow the machine??? Boy, tough to tell what a person will get in their head years from now.
If we could do that, then there would be a lot fewer divorce attorneys.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Because you hunt in/near water often, you might want to consider the AT Pro . It has 2 modes, one basically being the same as the ACE. The detector can be ground balanced to salt water and another plus is that it is water proof.

Here is a link to some videos using the . http://www.garrett.com/hobbysite/hbby_at_pro_videos.aspx If you have any further questions regarding any Garrett detectors, just ask. There are a lot of well seasoned users of all makes on this forum.

Good luck with your search!

John

 

[Orion42]

I think John meant "consider the AT-Pro".

Another John

 

[Hank68]

The ace250 is a great machine I operate it in AM mode, it only has three tone which I like. Just can't beat the 250 period!!