Recommend A Saltwater Detector For An 11 Year Old Boy

[Ferrous Grump]

For the last 3 days I have been taking a friend's grandson detecting along the Atlantic ocean.  He is 11 and was having some difficulty using my Minelab Equinox.  It was my lightest detector.  He seems really excited to hunt but I can tell the swinging and the digging in wet sand is a bit too much for him.  Is there any lighter, cheaper detectors that will still perform well along the surf?  He only goes in ankle deep water and mostly hunts the wet & dry sand.

 

Thank you.

[Northeast]

I'm certainly not the guy to be answering your question with my limited range of detector usage.  But I will ask a question ?

Does your Nox have the 11" or 6" coil on it?   I haven't used a 6" on mine but I imagine it makes it as light as fly poop.  Going from a Detech 11" coil on a PI down to an 8" Sadie made the detector I use particularly lighter.  

Possibly help him to seperate the signals too?  

Just a thought  ?

 

[Northeast]

Or you could look through these pages  https://www.detectorprospector.com/metal-detector-database/  and simply look at the weights under the main heading and then look at the lightest ones.  

Sorry that I'm not recommending anything for you, just giving you more work  ?

[Ferrous Grump]

48 minutes ago, Northeast said:

Does your Nox have the 11" or 6" coil on it?

Thank you for replying.

No.  I have read where the 6" helps on weight and more importantly pinpointing for new users.

Thanks for the second reply.  I'll check the weights of the database machines.  I just don't want to buy one that will go crazy down by the saltwater.

[kac]

Nokta has the Simplex that just came out. Not sure how good it is but looks pretty nice.

If there isn't a lot of trash out there like nails and screws the Garrett Sea Hunter is nice and he can put the control box on his waist. I just picked one up myself and it is super easy to use. It does have discrimination on it but I don't think it really does much so I leave it at the lowest setting.

I think VLF's for the most part are tricky to use in the salt and if someone is new at it then they can become frustrated.

[Noah (FL)]

They aren’t waterproof but if you can find a used Tesoro Compadre with the little 5-3/4 coil they will run relatively stable on the wet sand with the discrimination set up into the foil range.  

The Simplex from MakNok may be a good inexpensive choice but I’m pretty sure it will be standard with the 11” coil and not be any better fir him to swing than your EQX is. 

Getting a 6” for the EQX would probably be the easiest solution 

[mn90403]

Will the Go Finds do it for you?  Inexpensive and light from the start ... I just don't know about the wet sand part.

I find a lot of stuff on the wet beaches with the 6" Nox.  It can find a quarter down 10 inches if you listen carefully.

You want to keep it fun for a young guy and also realize that he may find something else he wants to do.  Finding a few good objects early makes a lot of difference.

Mitchel

[kac]

I have a Tesoro and as good as it is, when you hit the salt there just isn't enough range on the GB to make it stable. Though the I believe the Compadre has a fixed or no GB it think it would be even more unstable. I wouldn't recommend a Tesoro anyways since the company seems to have closed it's doors.

Take a look at the Sea Hunter, it is fully waterproof to 200ft and you can mount the box on a hip belt so there is no weight on the poles.

I have used it just a couple times so far at a local beach and it is so easy and stable. Only issue I ran into is on the cruddy river side of the beach I hit has a lot of nails. In general the open beaches are surprisingly clean. I even went over some hot rock areas and had no issues where both my AT Pro and Tejon went bonkers on. Battery life seems longer than they spec it out to be. They say 5-10 hours and I have close to 10 now and they are still at full. Guessing they probably hit 15-20 hours.

[Ferrous Grump]

On 4/21/2019 at 4:27 PM, mn90403 said:

Will the Go Finds do it for you?  Inexpensive and light from the start ... I just don't know about the wet sand part.

I find a lot of stuff on the wet beaches with the 6" Nox.  It can find a quarter down 10 inches if you listen carefully.

You want to keep it fun for a young guy and also realize that he may find something else he wants to do.  Finding a few good objects early makes a lot of difference.

Mitchel

Actually Mitchel, the GoFinds were my 1st thought.  I just don't know how well they would handle the Salt water interference.  He would not be getting the whole unit wet but, I would for him to use his MD in the wet sand.

As far as fun,  the 1st place we went was a trashy beach.  he still managed some coins.  The next day, we went to a section of beach that had a machine gun nest during WWII.  He found some 30 & 50mm bullets and was stoked!   Next time, I may "seed" the beach with a ring I've found so he can discover it and be hooked like the rest of us!

 

S. Ray

[Ferrous Grump]

On 4/21/2019 at 7:29 PM, kac said:

 

Take a look at the Sea Hunter, it is fully waterproof to 200ft and you can mount the box on a hip belt so there is no weight on the poles.

 

Thank you.  You actually gave me an idea of what to try when you mentioned the Tesoro & hip mount.  I have the Tesoro Sand Shark.  I could let him use this with the hip mount and hopefully this will work for him!