ACE 250 with Sniper Searchcoil

[Monty]

I resoponded to someone on the forum a couple days ago regarding the Sniper coil for the ACE 250, but can't remember who it was! At any rate, I had been looking for the new small Sniper coil for my ACE 250 and found one at a recent club hunt. Until this morning I had not had a chance to try it out. I just happened to drive by an old Sonic drive-in restaureant that had been closed for about a year. It had a nice big grassy area between the car bays and with the carhops carrying and making change there surely must be some clad there and a good place to test my Sniper coil.
I went to the old Sopnic early this morning about 7:00AM and by 9:30 I had all the digging I wanted as suspected. The little coil performed almost flawlessly. There were no false signals and ever time the bell tone sounded there was a coin to be had at the indicted depth. There were coins every foot or so and the little coil was extremely successful in sorting them out. For once I was able to distinguish between a pull tab and a nickel! The tones were very subtly different with the nickel tone at a slightly higher pitch or just a bit more brassy sounding. I only dug one pulltab all morning! I found more nickels than I ever thought possible. I got tired of digging all those pennies so I set my ACE on custom mode and discriminated out everything but nickels, dimes, quarters and halves. The machine still occasionally gave the bell tone for a penny, but would show a penny on the scale, so I just didn't dig those. After that I fouind several quarters and a Kennedy half dollar. I am going to work the area and try to remove all the shallow, near surface surface coins so I can listen for the jewelry tone without hitting a coin every foot or so. With all the traffic back and forth across this small grassy area and being all female carhops I would think there is at least a ring there or perhaps a bracelet or necklace? Total for the 2 1/2 hour hunt was: 29 clad Lincoln cents, 10 Jefferson nickels, 11 Roosevelt clad dimes, 10 Washington clad quarters (two dated 1965, just a year too late!), and the one Kennedy half dollar dated 1991. No picture, everyone knows what clad looks like! Hope this answers your question about the Sniper coil, definately worth the money in my opinion. JIM

 

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[stoney56]

Jim, it could be too that it's able to disc. out the post 1982 zinc pennies and sound off on the real pennies that are made of copper-just remember to mabe change the settings a hair if you're in an area where I.H. cents might be lurking as I think they read a little lower on the scale. Just thinking of the test we ran Sun. HH. Jeff

 

[Getty]

Great job jim.Sounds like a hot spot. Thanx for the good info about the ACE 250 and coil.

 

[hollowpointred]

hey jim! i was the guy that was asking about the sniper coil.thanks alot for the review.extremely usefull as always. from your review i think im gonna put one of these on the "must have" list.some of the spots i am trying to hunt are soooo trashy i think the only practical way to hunt them is with a small coil. thanks again buddy!!

 

[Monty]

I'm not suer what an old Indian head would sound like. I hit what appeared to be a copper gas fitting and it sounded and read out as a quarter. This little a ACE was so accurate this morning I was surprised. In order to avoid all those faux cents I had to turn the the discrimination way up (down on the scale, that was always confusing to me) and the sensitivity up a couple notches from the factory setting. This was very pourous soil and the pennies were at 4 to 6 inches and the dimes and quarters were all about 4 inches. The nickels were nearly all at 5 to 6+ inches for some reason? The half was nearly on top and was laying flat, face up. I hit it dead center with my digging tool and at first thought it was a smashed aluminum can. I have noticed that a smashed can will keep signaling even when you lift your coil about 6" off the ground whereas a coin will stop sounding within a couple of inches or so. I can't discriminate a can out on the ACE like I can on the GTI 2500. JIM

 

[DirtyDon]

Sounds like the SNIPER is the way to go. Have IDX PRO and was very happy with it, then I got an ACE 250. What a difference. I haven't been out too much yet but I did get a cent signal and the "BELL" rang loud. Found a .22 shell down about 6-8 inches. I think that is a small target to be detected that far down. Going on CLUB HUNT this Sunday at a ski resort. That should be a test for the 250. What is the price on the SNIPER.

 

[Monty]

I lease some rural property that has about a mile of an old WPA road on it. The workers camped along the road when it was being built and used mules and wagons to haul materials to and from the site. Tried to run my detector over the road and kept getting strong signals at six to 8 inches. When I would dig I wasn't finding anything and then I got to noticing that I was finding .22 hulls. They play heck with a detector and send out a strong signal way out of proportion to their size and metal makeup! Good news is that I did find an old steel wagon wheel rim and a mule shoe used by the worker. There should be some coins and other artifacts if I can locate their camp site. I think I will take my GTI 2500 next time I go down there and see if I can discriminate out those pesky .22 hulls.
I paid $60.00 for my Sniper coil. Cost depends on where you buy it I guess. I emailed Kellyco and asked about it since they didn't have it in their catalog. Got no response so I bought mine at a vendor's booth at a club hunt. Sixty bucks seems steep for a less than $200.00 detector but try buying a searchcoil for any of the other detectors and they usually run over a hundred dollars easy unless there is some kind of special promotion going on. I would like to see a 10" coil come out for open field hunting. I tried my ACE at a club hunt and the standard coil was so small that I was at a serious disadvantage when compared to some other machines with larger coils. The accuracy and ability to pick up planted targets was superb, but I found I had to swing a lot faster in order to cover the same amount of ground. Nearly wore my arm out just to keep up with the field! JIM

 

[dudes2112]

I ordered the sniper on Tuesday of this week and got it for $59.95 with shipping included. Kellyco was advertising it on their website for $59.95 but then the shipping was going to be something like $9.00 or more. I ended up finding the same coil at another internet site for $59.95 with free shipping and then e-mailed Tony P over at Kellyco to see if he would match the price, he did. Never heard of the other site and had ordered from Kellyco before so I wanted to go through them if possible. Should have the new coil by tomorrow or Monday 8)

Dudes

 

[Monty]

Be sure and let us know how it works for you dudes. JIM

 

[dudes2112]

Will do Jimmileo, just checked the tracking number and it won't be in until Tuesday. DANG!

Dudes

 

[dudes2112]

Got the coil on Tuesday and tried it around the house a little, will hit the picnic tables at the park tomorrow morning. Previously, with the stock coil, there were so many targets I couldn't even dig. Needed a screen instead of a detector!! I just hope most of them are coins.

Dudes

 

[Monty]

All those same targets will still be there waiting for yoiu , but you should be able to sort them out one by one. You still have to dig 'em all to find the gold! JIM

 

[dudes2112]

Well, the coil seems to be performing exactly as designed but it turns out all the targets I was hitting were trash. All but one 5 center! Can't work a very large area with that thing either, which can only be expected. I have about 3 other areas with high target concentrations that I will hit next. I'll always start with the stock coil and then only go back if needed with this one, just wouldn't be practical to use this if you weren't sure the area was saturated.

Dudes

 

[Monty]

For parks or any place there are lots of sidewalks or bleachers, etc, I use the small coil to check all around them first and usually use it to work that first couple of feet. Then I switch to the regular coil and work my way out. The concentration of junk and legit targets seems to be in that first couple of feet especially around picnic tables. I usually use my big detector GTI 2500 on larger open areas. With the 8 1/2" coil it is really good about discriminating between junk and good targets. It is so sensitive and has the ability to be so fine tuned I usually can sort out a coin even masked by junk. It's that good. I have a sniper coil for it but seldom use it. JIM