Bill (S. CA)

Too late! Besides, nobody believes me anyway - HA! I have never seen another Apex on the West Coast except mine. Fine by me. It is an exceptional performer on our saltwater beaches.

Hey Bob. It's so nice to have another Apex fan here on the forum. Back in June last year I posted this: As I think I've said before, detecting is what I do for fun. I don't test, I don't analyze, I just hunt. For me, the Apex is just fun to hunt with. That's all I need. Thanks for this great post. Bill

I agree with Steve. This will, I believe, be an all Garrett detector. While I respect the opinions of those who are wishing for a Garrett V3I I think the chances are nil. All of the code would would have to be rewritten and the hardware must be totally obsolete. Way too expensive in my view. I also cannot fathom that Garrett would bring out yet another gold machine at this time. My bet is that it will be a flagship multi-frequency of some sort. We will all know in a few weeks I imagine. Garrett loves teasers and you can bet they have been shooting videos leading up to the introduction. Bill

I would refer to us as cagey veterans, Bob. I remember practicing and practicing your probing technique. My dad got me an ice pick and rounded the tip of an eight inch screwdriver. I could never get the last step right where the turf went back together seamlessly. The rotation with the screwdriver part was always my nemesis! I do remember being pretty good at pinpointing without having a pinpointer. I used to practice with a coin taped to a piece of cardboard and I would use a pin to poke through to see if I was on the target. My first pinpointer was a Tiny Tec. If I remember correctly it always went out of tune and got zero depth. But I still thought it was cool to have. Nowadays there are so many options but I still like my ProPointer II the best of all. Bill

My gosh, Bob, you are a detecting rock star! That illustration should be framed in a metal detecting museum. It should also required reading for our new generation of hunters that seems to like to use backhoes at parks to recover targets.

Hey Bob, I thought I remembered your name. Not many of us old school field testers left. Reading between the lines was the key indeed, wasn't it? I wrote the last published field test for Western and Eastern Treasures. Rosemary Anderson was an angel and encouraged me from the very beginning when I submitted my first freelance article. I remember when she promoted me to contributing editor - I felt like I had just won an Academy Award, I felt so honored! Thanks goodness Steve created this forum. It is the only safe haven left for old pros like us. Totally agree with your assessment of the Apex, too. I do wish they hadn't introduced it as part of the Ace line. That little detector is still a sleeper, you know? Looking forward to continuing the dialogue with you, Bob. Bill

Bob, A welcome to you as well. It's nice to hear from another satisfied Apex owner. I have always felt that it never got its due and despite my owning other detectors it is the one that I swing almost all of the time. For me it is just more fun to use. Looking forward to your posts when the Storm hits... Bill

Jeff is right. Run the IF at 0 or 1. Otherwise you severely compromise the depth. And I found the setting in general to be useless. I never run mine above 1 as it is unnecessary for stable operation.

"DT" is the new deep target recognition feature. My experience with my Legend has been similar to yours at my beaches. It just doesn't go as deep as a Deus II or Equinox. However, and you and I have discussed this a lot, out here in S. CA nothing can beat the Deus II at depth in wet and/or black sand. I haven't seen an Equinox at the beach in over a year and my Legend is the only Legend I've ever seen. It's all Deus II's with an occasional Manticore. Saw one 900 last year and that hast been it. Personally, my favorite detector to hunt the beaches with is my Apex. I just like it and it gets really good depth. I'm anxious to see what the Storm brings to the table.

Yet another good write up by you. Any thoughts to doing the Legend Update to see if DT and Beast mode improve performance?

What an amazing find! I'm glad to see you hunting and not testing for once! So how about the story on this? In the water, right? Deep? Did you use your double beep/single beep method? I'm laid up recovering from a partial knee replacement and two broken ribs (thanks to a chiropractor) so I need to know! Bill

Thanks for the advice you guys. I just don't want to do something dumb and really mess it up.

If you are willing to buy a rechargeable battery as others has suggested then any of the aforementioned pinpointers will do the job for you. It's really up to your preferences. As a standalone, do you want ultimate simplicity? Ferrous/non-ferrous? A display screen? I have used all of the pinpointers mentioned and find that I like them all. But to be totally honest, I instinctively reach for for my Garrett most of the time. It's just so rock solid and easy to use. One note: the XP in pitch audio has by far the coolest target tone.

I appreciate the responses. Different strokes as they say. Target recovery for me on a beach is so fast and easy I have no need of a pinpointer. Even the tiny bits are easy to sort out. Maybe it's due to the 250,000 pulltabs I've dug (probably a low estimate) over the years...

Just curious how many of you use pinpointers on the beach. I've been a beach hunter for over 40 years and have never used one on the beach. But nowadays I see a lot of hunters using them to pinpoint coins which I think is pretty silly. I can find any coin with my sand scoop no problem. I get it if you are hunting for micro gold on the dry but otherwise to me it's unnecessary. What do you folks think? Bill

Maybe not. Look at the tip of the coil. To PhotoShop a moving image like that with the detector name isn't easy. The video is professional looking and Garrett is known for putting $$ into promotional videos so this could be the real deal. It also would make sense for Garrett to use the Axiom body though. I beach hunt with my Axiom on occasion and weight is not an issue for me but I am curious about the weight. Fun to speculate, isn't it?

So George, what was your first Garrett and what was your latest? Bill

It looks like the Storm is approaching: https://www.facebook.com/groups/929805548395125/

I can't verify this but I was told that after the X-Terra was released there were discussions of putting BBS into that shell. Would have been an interesting concept. Actually, taking the Excalibur and keeping BBS but changing the case/control design could be very interesting. BBS is still quite good in the water and at a saltwater beach. Unfortunately, companies in general don't look back at technology when they develop products so I seriously doubt if it will ever happen. Bill

I just found out that I have a cracked rib. The CT scan indicates that it is healing. I'm about 6 weeks in since the injury. Is it safe to start swinging or am I better off to wait a few more weeks? The rib is tender but doesn't hurt like it did a few weeks ago. Gee I just love getting old...

I agree, the all black buttons are just plain dumb. Has anyone used the Nokta protective cover with the keys in red? https://www.noktadetectors.com/accessory/protective-system-box-cover/ I'll be honest I haven't purchased it because I think Nokta should have included one with each Legend since they clearly don't want' to make the buttons more visible. Or at least offered them to current owners at cost. I love the company and the Legend is a really good detector but the button issue simply doesn't make sense to me. Meanwhile I just have the buttons pretty much memorized so it really isn't a problem for me anymore.

I use an Apex extensively and I doubt if it is your coil. Are you running with iron audio on? If so, that may account for all of the noise. The Apex is almost impossible to swing with iron audio on in sites with a lot of iron. i run mine off and only use it to check questionable targets. Used that way it is in my opinion quite an asset.. Good targets will not have an iron grunt. Not saying it isn't the coil but most detectors can give you trouble in heavy iron. Have you hunted with the detector in other sites than the one that is giving you trouble? If you still think it is the coil then by all means contact Garrett. They have excellent customer service and will most certainly take care of you. Bill

Many good, valid points here. I'd like to add one more: learn your detector. Hunt with it a lot. They are all nuanced and have their quirks be it by sound or TID. Dig your first 1000 pulltabs and I guarantee you will start picking up on subtle differences between them and potentially good targets. For many years I was a one detector guy. I'd save up my finds and then move up and buy another detector. But only one because that's all that I could afford. Now I'm spoiled and have too many choices. If I was totally honest I'd have to say I haven't learned any of them to the degree that I learned my detectors back in the "I only own one" days.

https://garrett.com/garrett-goldmaster-24k-metal-detector

The 24K is a great detector. I would highly recommend watching Steve's videos on the 24K on the Garrett web site. He knows the machine very well. Good luck with it. Bill