White's Surf PI Dual Field Metal on land??????

[bobby-in-mass]

Im looking to buy a machine dfx or pi dual?
I have owned a dfx before and think I could do go at the beaches with a water machine
cant buy both
can you use the dual on land?
how well will it work?
thanks

 

[imalookin2]

If you are going to buy one machine make it the GT. You can hunt deep on salt beaches due to the multi frequency BBS and it works very well on dirt too. It will beat almost everything out there for depth and is a solid machine with straight shaft out of the box. Unless you need a meter to hunt then that is the machine. Any PI is the wrong choice for land hunting period. You must have a discriminate setting and PI's hit every scrap of iron in the ground. Waste of time unless you are hunting IN the water or clean beaches.

 

[Up to my ____ in Pulltabs Grant]

Agreed, but if you wanted to go into the water were many of the good finds located.
There are a few other choices.

Fisher CZ21 is a very good all around VLF detector with descrimination and all metal mode. At home in the water or on land.

Many people who own ML Excaliburs use them both on land, the beach and in obviously in the water.

White's Beach Hunter I.D. is also a great detector for double duty.( the most detector for the least money )

imalooking2 mentioned that if you opt for a P.I. machine, be prepaired to dig every signal. The beaches down here in South Fl are a mine field of trash. I'd quit going to the beach if all I had were a PI machine.

One last other thing that you sould remember is that all of the P.I. machines except the most expensive ones like a ML GPX5000 are not very sensitive to small gold targets. You will however with a PI machine, find every scrap and fragment of twist-off soda caps, crown caps, bobby pins, small lead sinkers and anything iron, even small fragments.

 

[Finderskeeper]

Any PI is the wrong choice for land hunting period. You must have a discriminate setting and PI's hit every scrap of iron in the ground. Waste of time unless you are hunting IN the water or clean beaches.

I have with all respect disagree. The Minelab GPX5000 was used recently in England where many old coins and jewelry was found. The area was heavily hunted with many top of the line detectors and was deemed hunted out. The 5000 found lots of stuff way deeper than any of the others could ever do.

The White's TDI is another example of a machine that can be used successfully on land. Iv'e seen some amazing things with the TDI.

I use a Minelab Exclalibur II and rarely use discriminate even on land. It is in many ways the same as a PI machine.

Hunting for civil war relics is another reason to use a PI machine.

I also have a White's Dual Field PI and I sometimes use it in areas that would be thought of not a good place to use a PI machine. I often find stuff that others with discrimination could not.

Give me a Minelab GPX 5000 for gold nugget hunting on dry land over anything else available. Ditto at civil war camp sites.

PI machines can be problematic on dry land, but even the least of the PI machines can be learned to a degree where the operator can sort of kind of tell if it is iron or not.

 

[Reggie]

Let me tell you about a friend of mine who has a PI machine which he has tried in good, unmineralized Louisiana soil at a civil war seige site. He has been hunting a small area of several acres for about 10 years, along with a host of other people, who have found every sliver of artifact within reach of VLF detectors. His PI machine has recently found a number of very deep, larger artifacts where the VLF machines would not reach: 2 bayonets, an almost complete rifle, along with myriad smaller objects-bottles, minnies, buttons, and a layer of bricks which apparently formed the bottom of a hut. So, in a hunted-out area where known artifacts have been recovered, it is possible to use a PI with very effective results. He ignores the loud signals which indicate iron and only digs the faint targets, knowing they are the deepest ones. By the time he's done, he has a large excavation which houses the nonmetallic bottles and even charcoal and bones from meals long ago. Using a PI differently from the VLFs may be an option for you, too.