Need review from someone who owns a Beach Hunter

[TRIPLE-SSS]

HI everyone,
First time on this forum and I am ready to invest in another detector for the water. All my detecting has been on dry sand and I am ready to expand my search into the water. I would appreciate some honest reviews from anyone who owns a Beach Hunter. I've been detecting for about 18 months and have found quite a bit and ready to spend some of my loot on another detector. After talking to some other detectorists, They suggested this detector. I have never owned a Whites and don't know much about their detectors. I figured that I could get some honest feed back from a Whites owner. Almost all my detecting will be in salt water in the surf.
Appreciate any Opinions and Feedback.
TRIPLE-SSS

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

I've owned one for two years and it does a good job.
The unit that I bought has the black 9.5 coil which has a tendency to float.
Will send the BHID back to Whites this winter and get the yellow bigger coil installed.
The three led lights definitely are good at IDing what you'll find in the water and on the sand beaches.
I,ve used this unit in soccer field and found lots of clad and a man gold band. Good practice to learn the BHID.
This detecting on land and beaches definitely help to learn motion pin pointing.
Some of the coins will show red on the led lights and switch to yellow and sometimes blue because of the iron content.
If it stays red its usually iron junk.
There's a BHID (overdrive super tune balance) that was passed on by Gobble-Gobble that will detect deeper items.
Hopes this helps and Good Luck
Joel

 

[dahut]

I've owned one for two years and it does a good job.
The unit that I bought has the black 9.5 coil which has a tendency to float.
Will send the BHID back to Whites this winter and get the yellow bigger coil installed.
The three led lights definitely are good at IDing what you'll find in the water and on the sand beaches.
I,ve used this unit in soccer field and found lots of clad and a man gold band. Good practice to learn the BHID.
This detecting on land and beaches definitely help to learn motion pin pointing.
Some of the coins will show red on the led lights and switch to yellow and sometimes blue because of the iron content.
If it stays red its usually iron junk.
There's a BHID (overdrive super tune balance) that was passed on by Gobble-Gobble that will detect deeper items.
Hopes this helps and Good Luck
Joel

I generally liked the BHID I used. I must admit to likes and dislikes, though.

What did I like, specifically?
- The thing is pretty rugged. Mind the seal and it wont get into much trouble. That's good at the beach.
- It had great audio tones, and being able to ID iron at the beach saves moving a lot of real estate for ferrous "crusties."
- It has an adjustable threshold, which is awesome.
- It had them funny "traffic lights," which are of some limited use. In the bright light of day, they seem pointless, especially with tone ID.
- It can be used in fresh water and SALT water! Hoohaw, that is sweeeeet!
- Ground balancing is a snap.
- Headphones are wired in... no leaks

What did I dislike?
- Well, I HATED the floating coil Joel mentions. If you find one of those, knock a hundred dollars off your offer and make it up by sending it to Whites for one of the "300" coil retrofits.
When all the world has gone to epoxy sealed, printed circuit coils, what was White's thinking with THAT notion?
- The battery compartment cover is fiddly. Check the seal, like I said... then, check it again before you "go wet."
- I mildly disliked the elbow mount position out in the water. Once submerged, the air filled control box tries to rise up and float like a balloon - - very bothersome. I consider body and hip mounting utter nonsense, so below the hand was the only other choice.
It still floated, annoyingly.

Improvements?
- Get the coil steady bracket mount. Trust me on this one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I admit the floating issue was mainly the older "clamshell" coil, although the large, air-bubble housing still hasn't changed. But, with the 12" epoxy loop, it is probably not as bad. Indeed, that loop may neutralize the housing effectively. I would sure like to get one of the newer BHID's, so equipped, and find out for myself... at an experimental price, of course.

Now, if Whites would dump the goofy "traffic light" TID option, squeeze the BHID into the same housing as the PI model and keep the new coil, I would sell my Tiger Shark and jump on one.

 

[khouse]

I had a problem with the all metal mode toggle staying put. I think it needs a lock on it. Other than that I thought it was a good performer at a great price.

 

[vietvet]

I had a problem with the all metal mode toggle staying put. I think it needs a lock on it. Other than that I thought it was a good performer at a great price.

Wow same problem I had,sent it back to Whites and got a brand new one in exchange.Works great now,use it on dry sand to waist high salt water found alot of clad and some decent jewelery.
Never noticed the coil floating had no problem keeping coil down with little effort.I hip mount control box to lighten the load .
I hunt in all metal,but disc is nice to have ,as are the lights,they seem to be very accurate.Have been using the BHID for 2 months now
and feel I made a great choice.

 

[UK Brian]

Lucky you. I had the same problem but noticed it was the way I was handling the machine.

I intended to go to the bigger coil size but prefer pulse for general salt beach work so have stuck with the stock original coil which allows me to get really close in to iron, cables, old bits of mooring chains where its proved better than the Sovereign and pulse just doesn't dare go.

 

[khouse]

My toggle would move back on it's own. The boot was so stiff that it would take about 20 seconds and it would flip. I could watch it. After training it for a while it would stay. That is until a wave hit it or the wind blew. I was going to put a rubber band around it but gave in and used the disc mode. I didn't know Whites had a fix? It should have had a pull and lock toggle..

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The Whites beach-hunter does not fare well on mineralized wet salt. As long as your beach is low minerals, it will be sufficient, I suppose. Jimmy Sierra (the Whites west coast distributor) would vouch for that. He discourages his CA dealers from selling them to beach hunters on our coast, for this very reason. The way you can tell how much mineralization is on your beach, is from the color of the sand: The whiter the sand in color, the less the mineralization. As it moves to tan/cinimmon color, it's increasing in mineralization. As it gets greyish, it's worse. And if it's gunpowder black (like you'd see in gully washes, for instance), is utterly nasty. Another way to tell is drag a magnet through the sand, and you'll see varying amounts of particles sticking to the magnet.

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

Forgot to mention that I use my BHID in fresh water only and use
the coil steady mount to keep it from flipping up in deeper water .

 

[NuggetBucket]

This is great information - Tater and I have a BHID, but we have not used it much as we each have V3s and have not made a lot of time for the water. We've gone to the local lake a few times and I used the BHID with fair success - found a few coins and a lot of bottle caps. I wish White's would make a version that has the same features as the V3, but is waterproof. Hmmmm. Anyway, I think it's a great machine so far, just need to put some more time in the water with it. I'd like to take it out to the coast (we live in CA), but I have a big fear of rogue waves and tsunamis...!

Nugget

 

[TRIPLE-SSS]

Thanks For All The Information Everyone,
Just one more question.what kind of prep work do you need to do after using it? Do you have to rinse it real good with fresh water and what about maintenance to keep it in tip top shape. Also, has anyone had problems with leaks as far as the seal is concerned.
Thanks Agian
TRIPLE-SSS

 

[vietvet]

I just hose it off when I get home to get the sand and salt off,no leaks so far!

 

[Joel-Winnipeg]

If you hunt in salt water it should be rinsed with fresh water before storing the unit.
There was an issue in the past with the black rubber seal leaking but this was corrected with a red seal now in the new BHID.
Never use Vaseline on the back rubber stopper to the battery use silicon based lubricants.
Vaseline will dissolve the rubber stopper and void the warranty.

 

[Adrian SS]

I have recently obtained one of these machines from Ebay in a non servicable condition for the simple reason that I wanted something to tinker with for a while, I have an electronics background and figured that if I got it going that would be fine and if I didn't then I will not have lost a lot of money and I could onsell it to someone for spare parts.
As it turned out I have fixed it and have tried it out briefly and my first impression is that it is a not to bad detector that does what White's designed it to do
I have read a lot of reviews about this machine, some good and some bad.
I have found it to be quite powerful in the All Metal mode and to ground balance well in moderatly high mineralisation (Iron).
In this mode it will detect a target much deeper than the TID can detect, so weak signals have to be uncovered a bit before they can be IDd.
The disc mode will ID any target it detects that produces a signal (has to be strong) but detection depth is not as deep as the All Metal mode.
The TID seems to be quite accurate and will give a green LED and high tone for sil, a Yellow LED and medium tone for gold and a Low Tone and Red LED for Ferrous.
The machine is not as effected by elec interference as my other detectors (Infinium, SOV and several others).
I have not used it at the beach yet but for a fixer upper it is not to bad.
And yes that dreaded Toggle switch is a bit of a pain. It was probably one of those problems that did not rear its ugly head until the final stages in development. I have fixed this temporarily with an elastic band around the toggle and tied back to a metal ring located under the case bolt nearest the switch. Seems to work ok....
until the rubber perishes?

Adrian SS

 

[Adrian SS]

Took the BHID ot to a freshwater beach today that consisted of sandy beaches,mineralised rocky river gravels and boulders.
The machine faired quite well and I was a bit suprised at the smooth threshold in All Metal And Disc mode.

The machine became a bit chirpy in Disc mode over some moderatly hot rocks that set the disco lights flickering around a bit.
In All Metal mode I was able to ground balance ok over these rocks.

The TID was quite accurate over the sand and in the water. I found that steel bottle caps were easily IDd in DISC mode because they would cause the threshold to dip just before a tone was produced, I dug a few of these signals just to check and later was confident enough to leave these targets in the ground. All iron or steel targets that I found, except for my pick which gave a high tone and green Light, produced this threshold dip. Like most vlf machines the disc mode can be fooled by large pieces of iron

In the water I did not notice any serious floatation problems from the coil and had no trouble holding the coil on the bottom, coil is a 9.5 inch open centre concentric.

So at the moment I am quite happy with this machine and I do not intend to rate it against any of my other detectors. The BHID appears to be a capable machine but I will say that because of the way it responds to some hot rocks it may proove to be noisy at the saltwater beach. I will be trying it out in salt conditions tomorrow

 

[Adrian SS]

Well I have just arrived back from the coast and am happy to say that the BHID ran beautifully. I was very suprised by how well the machine handled the saltwater and wet sand, so well in fact that I only had to adjust the GB Twice; Once when I first started detecting and again when I encountered black sand.

I cannot fault the machine on the normal wet and dry saltwater sand plus it was not affected by the wave action when in the water (big Eye Opener). I was a bit stuned at how well the detector was operating. The threshold remained steady and the TID was accurate in and out of the water.

the only time the machine became slightly unstable in the All Metal mode was over the black sand Tin/iron mineralisation but even then I was still able to run the sensitivity at the P position. At no time did the detector become unstable in the Disc Mode.

I think it would be safe to say that because of the reaction to the mild level black sand mineralisation I think the detector will be a bit of a handfull in high level black sand deposits in All Metal mode.

I honestly was not expecting the BHID to be much chop at the beach,but it ran so well I did not fire up the Infinium or the Sov or the CS4PI for the entire day.

I was intending to sell this on ebay after I repaired it but I think it is a keeper. (for the time being)

Cheers Adrian SS

 

[Adrian SS]

n/t

 

[Adrian SS]

n/t

 

[khouse]

Since it ID's in all metal that is a good way to run it. If you want the deepies you listen for a rise in the thresh. Otherwise you hear the "zip zip" on targets. Like I said the only problem was the toggle. How did your toggle work for you? Glad you had great success with it!

 

[GuerillaBill]

I have a BeachHunter 300 ID. Also have a Minelab Excalibur and a Minelab Sovereign GT.

I live right across the street from the beach, so I have the opportunity to detect every day.

Of those three detectors, I like the BeachHunter 300 the best. It is the easiest to use, seems to find the deepest targets, and is by far the most reliable.

While the Excalibur and Sovereign GT are fine detectors, both require a learning curve which can take time to figure out what the different tones mean.

And both the excalibur and Sovereign have slow recovery times when they detect iron and null out. So if a ring is close to an iron fragment, you'll likely miss the ring due to the nulling.

In contrast, with the beachhunter, you just turn it on and go. No tones to learn. No controls to set. Just turn it on and start swinging.

I generally detect in all metal mode with the beachhunter, and when I get a tone, I check the lights to see if it is yellow or blue. If red, I don't dig. If yellow, I'll flip to discrimination mode and pass the coil to see if the tone is repeated. If it is, I'll dig.

I've dug quarters at 12 inches, and found a diver's knife at 16 inches. The rings and bracelets and watches and earrings I found generally are in the 12 inches or less depth.

The beachhunter is quite stable in the surf as well. No crazy chirping and beeping and squealing like on the excalibur. Just a nice steady tone until you pass over metal.

The main reason I switched from the excalibur to the beachhunter was I had to send the excalibur back for repairs. So while the excal was in for repairs, I bought the Beachhunter.

After using the beachhunter for the 6 weeks it took minelab to fix the excalibur, I didn't want to go back to the excalibur.

The 12" coil on the beachhunter means you can cover more ground, and pick up targets outside of the coil area. With both minelab machines, I felt I was missing targets due to the small coil - compared to the Beachhunters 12" coil.

Another thing I like about the beachhunter is the battery run time. I get 40+ hours on a set of batteries, and have yet to have them run out on me. The battery charge indicator is also a nice touch (something that neither the excalibur or soverign have).

One final point on reliability - I have used the Beachhunter every day on the beach for almost a year now - through hot and dry, hot and wet, rain storms, cold waves, and under water.

It has never failed me.

My excalibur is back in the shop again - after using it less than an hour since the last time it was repaired by Minelab.

So when I head out to the beach (like I did this morning), instead of reaching for the excalibur or sovereign GT, I usually take the BeachHunter. And come home with a bag full of interesting things.

Bill