Best Gold and Metal Detectors
Metal Detectors - Fun Hobby and
Amazing Family Adventures
Growing up my family lived on a large piece of
property, down a long gravel driveway, out in the middle of an endless view of
vacant land as far as I could explore and more. Today that land has tens of
thousands of houses on it, and though the bare land may be gone, the memories
will last a lifetime.
One of those memories is that my dad had a metal detector, an old school style
that was probably pretty nice for it’s time. It got the job done, and it was a lot of
fun. I remember the stories that my parents would tell me on how they used that
metal detector to explore even bigger swaths of land when they were growing up,
and all the really exciting and interesting things that they would find.
There’s a lot you can do with a metal detector. For my family it’s all about taking a
family trip to new places to explore on a quest for gold, meteorites, old coins, old
guns, parts of our cowboy and gold rush history, and so many other possibilities.
It’s fun to research and plan for new expeditions, whether they are a day trip with
a nice picnic snuck into the middle of our day, a weekend camping trip, or a small
hotel in a neat and historic town.
Best Quality Gold and Metal Detectors
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Minelab GPX 5000 Gold Metal Detector
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Minelab GPX 4800 Gold Metal Detector
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Minelab E-TRAC Metal Detector
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Fisher Labs F75 Multi Purpose Metal Detector Combo
The most important part of jumping into the hobby of metal detecting is your
equipment, with the metal detector being the central most important piece of
equipment to run. It is critical to your success to buy a metal detector that will do
what you need it to do, as well as a metal detector that won’t sound off on false
or really frustrating finds like can tabs. You need to be able to filter out the noise,
so you can target worthwhile treasures and valuables to keep it fun.
There are a lot of great accessories for metal detectors that you may also want to
venture into. Headphones, shovels and spades, possibly different sized and types
of search coils, a pin pointer type metal detector to hone in on your find.
The first thing you want to think about is what types of items you are going to
target in your quest for treasures. If you will be doing metal detecting in creeks or
other water filled areas you will want to make sure your metal detector is water
proof. If your looking for gold, you would want to find a metal detector that is
good for coin hunting, gold nuggets, and jewelry.
How a Metal Detector Works
What a metal detector does is it transmits magnetic energy into the ground and
senses distortion in the magnet field caused by the presence of a metal object.
Types of Metal Detectors
Today’s metal detectors have two primary detection technologies. The first one is
known as Single Frequency, or it is also known as Continuous Wave. The second
one is Multiple Frequency, also known as Dual Frequency or Pulse Induction. Each
frequency technology has it’s own detection characteristics. The most common
models today are the VLF or Very Low Frequency models. A nice upgrade to the
top of the line models would be the newer Pulse Induction Units. Metal
detectors can be an expensive investment, so it’s important that it is durable,
dependable, and will last for generations. Make sure the model you get is
waterproof, as you never know what you will encounter in your expeditions and
you don’t want fog, dew, or rain to turn your expensive gold getter into a paper
weight that you can no longer use.
Expanding Your Gold or Treasure Hunting Horizons
I recommend buying a book on gold hunting, or joining a few good quality
treasure hunting websites, and treasure hunting forums, to see what other metal
detecting enthusiasts are searching for and finding. Some gold detector brands
will come with information on a CD that will give you a high level view of some
treasures that have been found, or that people are on a quest for, but everybody
gets those CD’s, so some of those adventures may not be very fruitful. There are
a lot of good videos, and tv shows as well, that will get your gold bug moving as
well.
Best Quality Gold and Metal Detectors
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Minelab Eureka Gold Metal Detector
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Teknetics T2 Special Edition Metal Detector with 11” and 5” Coils
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Minelab Equinox 800 Metal Detector
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Fisher Lab Gold Bug 2 Metal Detector Combo
Common Metal Detector Features
Discrimination is a metal detector’s ability to tell the difference between one
target and another. This is important because you want to know if what the metal
detector is finding is a quarter or a bottle cop tab or cap. There is nothing more
frustrating than digging six inches of rocky dirt about a hundred times finding
nothing but garbage. You want to buy a metal detector that will skip those items,
or sift through the white noise so that it only gives you the best chance at finding
something interesting or valuable. There are models that will auto adjust out the
noisy targets, and ones that allow you to custom tune it as you get better and
better at looking for treasure and getting familiar with your new metal detector.
Ground Balance is where the metal detector bypasses minute levels of metal like
iron and other metals so that you can find the more important objects that you
are looking for. Many of today’s metal detectors can automatically balance out
these objects. Some models have the ability to manually adjust out these objects.
The automatic ones often have a multiple ground balance that allows you to
select either automatic or manual depending on the conditions of your ground
search and what you are looking for.
Target Identification is one of the best features of a metal detector that enables
your metal detector to distinguish between different targets to identify a dime, a
penny, a quarter, silver jewelry, junk that can be skipped, gold, and more. On a
high quality model where this feature is completely dialed in, this will save you
from digging up things that you aren’t looking for, so you can focus on the
treasures that you want to find.
Operating Frequency on a metal detector is the number of times the signal is
transmitted and received by the detector during every second. The Lower
Frequency detectors can scan deeper, so they offer better overall detection
depth. The general purpose models typically operate at the lower frequencies,
where the high end target specific models that look for gold, as an example, use
higher frequencies.
Sensitivity is the ability to detect metal objects from a distance. Just like if you
have your volume on your stereo turned down low, you can’t hear the sound, the
same goes for your metal detector. If you have the sensitivity turned down, it
allows you to drown out the noises from objects that you aren’t looking for, but
just make sure you don’t set it so low that it doesn’t detect anything. You need a
nice healthy balance or you will miss some good finds. An example where you
would definitely need to turn the frequency down is if you are in an area with
high mineral content.
Search Depth is the depth to which your metal detector is able to search for
objects. The Lower frequency metal detectors can scan at deeper depths. Your
soil composition can impact how deep you can scan, as can the coil you are
scanning with. Larger coils can search deeper, where the smaller ones will search
more shallow. The rule of thumb is that your coal can search one and a half
times it’s size in depth, so if you are using an 8 inch search coil, you will typically
be looking for an average sized coin at about an 8 to 12 inch max depth.
Best Quality Gold and Metal Detectors
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Minelab X-Terra 705 Metal Detector
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Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold Pack Metal Detector
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Garrett AT Max Metal Detector
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Fisher Labs 1280 X Aquanaut Underwater Metal Detector
What Can You Find in Your Target Area?
AS you being to figure out which metal detector is the right one for you, you
should consider the climate and the soil composition in your area. The three
main types of metal detectors are land based coin and relic hunting, beach and
under water detecting and prospecting for gold and precious metals. The most
common type is the land detecting type, which will locate coins, gold, jewelry,
relics, and historical building materials. If you plan to target creeks, lakes,
beaches, rivers, or the ocean, you maight want to consider a beach or under
water model. The models that will work near or in saltwater will require
specialized equipment because of the electrical properties of salt and water, and
they also need to be waterproof.
Garrett Metal Detectors
ATMAX ATGOLD ATPRO
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AT (All-Terrain) VLF Detectors
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Find Your Treasure. Any conditions. Anywhere.
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No boundaries.
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Waterproof to 10 feet.
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Full versatility.
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