greatwhite
New member
Looking to get my first waterproof detector for wading and shallow water dives. The best price I found on a sand shark $543.00. How does it stack up against the other PI machines? Performance and simplicity?
Find's Treasure Forums
Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!
You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.
Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.
Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.
Click here to register!
Need Support Help?
Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you
Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.
Tesoro Sand Shark....any good?
- Thread starter greatwhite
- Start date
I started out a year ago new to beach hunting and bought the Sand Shark. I can't compare it to other machines; I can only speak to how great a unit it's been for me. It's definitely a great beginners tool that you won't outgrow. I routinely find targets small enough to slide through my scoop at depths over 12 inches. It has 2 operating modes; "normal", which emits a constant tone that increases volume over a target, and "VCO" which changes pitch over a target. In VCO I can run the threshold all the way to silent and still detect a small fishhook at 10-12 inches. I prefer to run this way. My hearing has degraded (too many jets, motorcycles and guns) and it's easier to distinguish silent/tone than tone/pitch change or tone/volume change. Batteries also last over 15 hours in this mode since you're not driving the headphone speakers except when over a target. I also believe it's safer, since in silent mode I can still hear what's happening around me. Tesoro is one of if not the only waterproof machine that has coil change capability. It also has a lifetime manufacturer's warranty. I love my Sandshark and don't think I'll be upgrading to anything "better" anytime soon.
greatwhite
New member
thanks for the info.I'd love to hear from some of the many "expert" beach hunters on this forum.Doesn't anyone else have an opinion?I'm trying to make an educated decision as to what I will purchase as my first salt water detector.My pockets aren't very deep so I really can't afford to spend too much.My wife would probably divorce me if she had any idea I was getting another metal detector.But one just ain't enough. I posted this same question on another forum and again only got one reply.Whats the deal? I need lots of feed back. Where's all the beach hunters
Gulf Hunter
Active member
n/t
I would do a search for "Sand Shark" on this forum, the Tesoro forum and the PI forum. If I am not mistaken, the Whites forum has some posts about the Sand Shark aIso. I have thought about the machine too, but got an Infinium instead. The Sand Shark seems to be a capable machine and the lifetime warranty is certainly a selling point.
Greatwhite,
Not sure what your priorities are in narrowing down your search. If price is one of the major factors, then the Sandshark would be a good bet. Being you want to use it on the beach, I would imagine that a waterproof unit is also a top priority.
If you want to dig all targets and go deep, then a PI is a very good option, but there are other VLF machines that discriminate that are very good.
If price, waterproofness and PI are the top 3, then the Sandshark, along with the Detector Pro PI ( that is what I have as a PI unit) and the Whites PI pro are close in price range and all work very well. I use the Detector Pro for the main reason that my shoulder is shot and I love the light weight. It also has an adjustable frequency so you can tune it to the conditions. It is very stable, very deep, tuned to hit gold and I believe Eric Foster helped with the design. I do not dive but hunt in knee to chest deep water when applicable, but I am not sure how deep it is rated for. I do think some people had trouble with the headphones leaking, but since I don't go under, I did not care. The weight, ease of use and freq adjustment was more of a selling point for me. I hunt the beaches of NJ and I have NO problem with the PI except when I am in the wet sand and there is lots of iron. Then, it's either get out the Excal or bite the bullet and dig tons of holes. I do know that a PI is indispensable when the beaches are sanded in....they just do deeper and end up getting targets when the Excal can't. Also, I have to hip mount the Excal because that baby is heavy.
If diving is a concern, then I would lean towards the Shark or Whites. The Sandshark does have the lifetime warranty...a BIG plus if you hunt salt water because that stuff can wreak havoc on a detector that continues to get submerged.
Just one thing....be prepared to dig LOTS of junk, iron, etc. that is DEEP if you hunt in the wet sand or ankle/keep deep water. If you go out further, there may be less trash. But in the trash, it gets to be a bear since the PI's hit on everything. Not sure how the limited discrimination of the Infinium works, but that unit seems to be out of your price range ( it was for me too !).
I hope this helps. To me, if you have access to the beach, want to get out in the water where most others do not go, are prepared to dig everything.. a waterproof PI is a must. They do find the gold.
One last thing... you could get a used one, but I am not sure how you feel about that. Me, I am a little leary about purchasing a use water machine.
JC
Not sure what your priorities are in narrowing down your search. If price is one of the major factors, then the Sandshark would be a good bet. Being you want to use it on the beach, I would imagine that a waterproof unit is also a top priority.
If you want to dig all targets and go deep, then a PI is a very good option, but there are other VLF machines that discriminate that are very good.
If price, waterproofness and PI are the top 3, then the Sandshark, along with the Detector Pro PI ( that is what I have as a PI unit) and the Whites PI pro are close in price range and all work very well. I use the Detector Pro for the main reason that my shoulder is shot and I love the light weight. It also has an adjustable frequency so you can tune it to the conditions. It is very stable, very deep, tuned to hit gold and I believe Eric Foster helped with the design. I do not dive but hunt in knee to chest deep water when applicable, but I am not sure how deep it is rated for. I do think some people had trouble with the headphones leaking, but since I don't go under, I did not care. The weight, ease of use and freq adjustment was more of a selling point for me. I hunt the beaches of NJ and I have NO problem with the PI except when I am in the wet sand and there is lots of iron. Then, it's either get out the Excal or bite the bullet and dig tons of holes. I do know that a PI is indispensable when the beaches are sanded in....they just do deeper and end up getting targets when the Excal can't. Also, I have to hip mount the Excal because that baby is heavy.
If diving is a concern, then I would lean towards the Shark or Whites. The Sandshark does have the lifetime warranty...a BIG plus if you hunt salt water because that stuff can wreak havoc on a detector that continues to get submerged.
Just one thing....be prepared to dig LOTS of junk, iron, etc. that is DEEP if you hunt in the wet sand or ankle/keep deep water. If you go out further, there may be less trash. But in the trash, it gets to be a bear since the PI's hit on everything. Not sure how the limited discrimination of the Infinium works, but that unit seems to be out of your price range ( it was for me too !).
I hope this helps. To me, if you have access to the beach, want to get out in the water where most others do not go, are prepared to dig everything.. a waterproof PI is a must. They do find the gold.
One last thing... you could get a used one, but I am not sure how you feel about that. Me, I am a little leary about purchasing a use water machine.
JC
greatwhite
New member
My Bounty Hunter 505 works well in the wet sand.Yesterday I found a tiny fish hook at 10 inches in the discrimination mode. It was a local freshwater beach so the mineral content of the sand may be less than what you find at ocean beaches.The Tesoro Sandshark will be primarily for the water and wet sand.Thank you for your feedback.