Sea hunter or Excalibur II

[Finderskeeper]

finderskeepers
It would be interesting to do a shoot out between PI machines and an Excalibur in pin point mode with Goldmaster headphones and a Doc's Treasure Amp

If all goes well there maybe a few hunters in Janurary that meet up for this on the Jersey Shore, (not a shoot out but more of a Learning session), hopefully a Infinium, Dual field, CZ20. Sovereign, Excalibur II with Peltors, and both of my excaliburs, one with WOT/Doc's/Peltors, the other with a 10 inch coil, Doc's/Peltors, I can bring a SeaHunter w/8 inch coil. There maybe a SandShark , And VB Max and his SE Pro has been invited, and has said there is a chance he will be there....My thing is to learn what settings work best on the Jersey shore's on each of these machines, and which would be the best for different conditions. I hope to capture a little video of each machine's settings, swing speed, and anything that might set it apart from the others. Looking forwards to meeting some great hunters.

I'll be looking forward to that video. I'll be hunting in Florida starting in Late February for about a month and a half using an Excalibur II with the WOT coil, the Treasure amp and the Goldmaster headphones. Thanks Joe for your videos. The pin point button mod is incredible. Makes me wonder why Minelab never put that on their machines. Love my WOT but I have to remember to bring down the sensitivity a bit when in the water. I tried a TDI pro on the beaches a couple of weeks ago when I was in Florida for a week and it was great. But I almost killed it a few times with rogue waves hit me when in less than ankle deep water. If they made a waterproof TDI pro, I might think about selling the Excal and get that as my one and only. It was that good.

 

[BootyHunter]

Wow it amazes me how poor reading comprehension is around here. The 20" to 26" statement was from Junklord and he was talking about using a Garrett SeaHunter Mark II PI. I stated that I have found rings at the 20" depth with an Excalibur II in pinpoint mode in wet sand. Both rings that I have found at that depth were large mens rings. Do I find rings at that depth often, of course not, but I was simply stating that I do not worry about depth when using my Excal vs the SeaHunter and that I would rather give up a little depth and be able to not waste my time digging sparkler wires and bobby pins.

pinpoint mode on the excal/sov is like hunting with a pi, its all metal. you use pinpoint for extreme depth so the tones in disc are now out the window so what are you talking about? how are you not wasting time if your hunting and digging in pinpoint mode?

You hunt in pinpoint mode, you get a signal, then you switch to disc and check it, if it is a good signal you dig, a null or a bad signal and you just pass it and go on to the next, no signal in disc then you dig a scoop of sand and recheck. Pinpoint mode is deeper and will pick up signals that disc will miss, thats how.

 

[scubanut]

Hi everyone and thanks for all the great info. I wanted to add metal detecting to my diving but have been totally confused as to which unit to buy. I was just about to buy the sea hunter but from what I'm reading it looks like I should just save up a little more and get the Excal, but it is a lot money to invest for something I've never tried. I found a few used Excals but am a little afraid to spend the kind of money they are asking for a used machine. I found one site on the net advertising a new one for $999.99 which is a super price if true. I've sent an email but haven't heard anything back. I think most of my detecting will be in the water, I have both tanks and a brownies third lung. I live in Florida and would also appreciate any input on where the most productive places to search underwater might be..what areas and what depth?

 

[BootyHunter]

Hi everyone and thanks for all the great info. I wanted to add metal detecting to my diving but have been totally confused as to which unit to buy. I was just about to buy the sea hunter but from what I'm reading it looks like I should just save up a little more and get the Excal, but it is a lot money to invest for something I've never tried. I found a few used Excals but am a little afraid to spend the kind of money they are asking for a used machine. I found one site on the net advertising a new one for $999.99 which is a super price if true. I've sent an email but haven't heard anything back. I think most of my detecting will be in the water, I have both tanks and a brownies third lung. I live in Florida and would also appreciate any input on where the most productive places to search underwater might be..what areas and what depth?

Hello. I am one of the guys who replied to your post about which detector to get and I own both types you were looking at. I understand your confusion and hesitation to dump so much money into something you are not sure you would enjoy. I have another suggestion, if you are mostly wanting to addetecting to your diving why don't you look at the Vibratector 730. It is a small handheld unit and it is waterproof to 100ft. I also have 1 of these and I use a Surface Supply Air system to dive in the swimming holes around here. Te Vibratector costs about 150 bucks and it works great. I got one because a couple of popular swim areas around here don't allow detecting during the open swimming hours and then they are not accesible after hours. I found a silver ring on my first outing with the Vibratector. This way you could get into it cheap, see if you enjoy it and if you don't you could sell it either on here or ebay and get most of your money back for it. Also if you do enjoy it the vibratector makes a great travel detector and you could take it on every dive even on dives with friends when your main focus is not detecting but still be able to detect. Just a thought. . Good luck to you and I hope you try this, it is an awesomely fun hobby. Check out my youtube channel, "Bootyhunter71" and I have some videos using all 3 of the different types of detectors. Thanks

 

[scubanut]

Thanks Bootyhunter, sure worth considering, especially since I'm new to the hobby.

 

[TheDualFieldBandit]

Hi everyone and thanks for all the great info. I wanted to add metal detecting to my diving but have been totally confused as to which unit to buy. I was just about to buy the sea hunter but from what I'm reading it looks like I should just save up a little more and get the Excal, but it is a lot money to invest for something I've never tried. I found a few used Excals but am a little afraid to spend the kind of money they are asking for a used machine. I found one site on the net advertising a new one for $999.99 which is a super price if true. I've sent an email but haven't heard anything back. I think most of my detecting will be in the water, I have both tanks and a brownies third lung. I live in Florida and would also appreciate any input on where the most productive places to search underwater might be..what areas and what depth?

Scubanut,
$999.99 for a new Excalibur sounds to good to be true...(be careful) Make sure this place is an approved Minelab dealer for warranty purposes. The CZ21 by Fisher is a good unit also you might want to consider plus you can pick up a used one for $650.00 to $750.00 Then there is the Whites Beach Hunter ID not as good as the previous ones that I've mentioned but you can pick one up for $350.00 to $400.00 If I bought one of these I'd replace the coil with a Excelerator 10 inch double D coil. I don't know why Whites never came out with this configuration but it would dramatically improve it's performance bring it a lot closer to the Excals. Hope this helps???

 

[scubanut]

Thanks for the great info, I sent an email to the address for the Excal and it came back undeliverable. There is a phone number so I plan on trying that today. They say they will upgrade the warranty to 4 years...anyway, I call today and see what goes.

 

[erikk]

BootyHunter you say you loss most of your depth in Elemination mode.Define most of your depth! In elemination set on 2 I fine class rings at 20 to 26 inches, Post ear ring at 6 to 8 inches. in salt water. The excal won't do that, I know I use to own one , I now own a sea hunter and an infinium LS because I don't mind digging deep Gold.

Mine will