I have been detecting for 3 years with an ace 250 now i am looking to upgrade live in minnesota and do most detecting here for coins and jewelery i also go prospecting west a few times a year so gold detecting might be used. I have read many reviews about many detectors. I am leaning towards a minelab exterra 70 most of the reviews iv read are a little older and wondering if this is still a good choice or should i be looking at something else. Also will Iknotice a difference between the exterra and my 250 or would i be wasting my money thanks
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.
what one??
- Thread starter rotceted
- Start date
If you are mostly a coin hunter, then the sizing/imaging feature might be a consideration. It is one more type of discrimination available with some models featured on Garrett's. Once this feature is mastered, it allows you to quickly leave lots of junk in the ground. The type of prospecting you will be doing might dictate what type of machine you might want to purchase, as there is quite a variety of gold machines, some do better with picking up shallow tiny match size nuggets, vs digging larger nuggets at deeper depths. The cost of gold machines varies considerably too. Good luck with whatever machine you get 
I have been detecting for 3 years with an ace 250 now i am looking to upgrade. I live in minnesota and do most detecting here for coins and jewelery. I also go prospecting west a few times a year so gold detecting might be used.
I have read many reviews about many detectors. I am leaning towards a minelab exterra 70 most of the reviews iv read are a little older and wondering if this is still a good choice or should i be looking at something else.
I have tried the Minelab X-terra. It's good, although I feel over hyped and over priced.
There have been some repair and warranty issues, too, which I hope are sorted now.
Since this is a Garrett forum, further comment will be reserved to those in the Garrett line. Garrett has the Scorpion, which is a gold detector with coin shooting capability.
The GTI's have also shown themseves to be adequate, if not stellar gold machines.
Really you are asking a detector to do a lot when you ask it to do both. Somewhere there has to be a compromise, you know?
Also, will I notice a difference between the Exterra and my 250, or would I be wasting my money.
You will definitely notice a difference - like night and day. Will you be wasting your money? At 3.5-4 times the price of the 250, only you can give the final answer to that.
In my most humble and respectful opinion, I'd say you might very well be.
I have read many reviews about many detectors. I am leaning towards a minelab exterra 70 most of the reviews iv read are a little older and wondering if this is still a good choice or should i be looking at something else.
I have tried the Minelab X-terra. It's good, although I feel over hyped and over priced.
There have been some repair and warranty issues, too, which I hope are sorted now.
Since this is a Garrett forum, further comment will be reserved to those in the Garrett line. Garrett has the Scorpion, which is a gold detector with coin shooting capability.
The GTI's have also shown themseves to be adequate, if not stellar gold machines.
Really you are asking a detector to do a lot when you ask it to do both. Somewhere there has to be a compromise, you know?
Also, will I notice a difference between the Exterra and my 250, or would I be wasting my money.
You will definitely notice a difference - like night and day. Will you be wasting your money? At 3.5-4 times the price of the 250, only you can give the final answer to that.
In my most humble and respectful opinion, I'd say you might very well be.
Yup, there will probably be a big difference between an Ace 250 and an XT70.. had both. If you plan to do any prospecting, and want VID/TID in your detector, the XTerra 70, Fisher F70, MXT/M6 would probably make for the most appropriate mid-range choices. I wouldn't go the Garrett GTI route (binder dundat) as the GTI 2500 doesn't have the small gold sensitivity as the others and the all-metal mode doesn't handle nasty ground (highly mineralized and changeable) all that well. As a coin shooter, on the other hand, it's one of the best and hunting in AM mode with the imaging on is really handy (and deep). Of the others, the MXT would make for a better prospecting unit in bad ground than the XT70 while the XT70 makes for a better coin/ring hunter. The MXT also seems to have a slightly more sensitive disc. mode than the XT70, though I'm talking very slight. The F70, judging from my F75 would probably give the MXT some stiff competition in the nugget hunting arena. It would also make for a better coin/ring hunter. The nice thing about the F70/XT70 is that you can put it in multi-tone and spend more time hunting and less time watching the meter. Also, I found the fixed notch on the MXT to be next to useless. One area where the MXT rules supreme, on the other hand, is coil selection. Both the F70 and XT70 have a pretty poor selection. I can see the F70 getting more and better coils (I hear that there's a HUGE SEF coil available) whereas Minelab has pretyy much shut down after market coil production for the XTerras. Also, both the XT70 and F70 will probably spend more time on their sides than upright due to the dumba$$ form over function philosophy exhibited in that aspect of their design. The MXT, on the other hand, is rock stable. There are many more pros an cons that I could list for each, but my fingers are getting tired. ..Willy.
I've used the F70 a good bit in the last 3 weeks and I can go along with everything Willy has said about it.
If you hadn't already purchased, I'd suggest you not walk, but RUN to get one over any of the others mentioned.
I want to suggest the MXT, as I feel it is probably the best at prospecting. But, it stumbles a little on "the other side of the coin" (pun intended).
If you hadn't already purchased, I'd suggest you not walk, but RUN to get one over any of the others mentioned.
I want to suggest the MXT, as I feel it is probably the best at prospecting. But, it stumbles a little on "the other side of the coin" (pun intended).