Beach Hunter I.D vs. Excaliber

[Foilman]

Hello,
What is the difference between the $800 dollar I.D. and the $1100 Excalibur besides price. I think I have an idea of the Excalibur performance. I see a lot of people with the ID. wondering what the performance and durability is like on th I.D. Is the ID waterproof? Shopping for a salt water machine. Also interested in your opinions on the best dealer for these products. Also hoping some other options are coming out. I read rumors but, is there anything new coming out anytime soon? When will somebody put it all together and put out something else? It doesn't seem like there are many choices in this category. I wish Tesoro would make one with the features I like, such as their lifetime warranty, discrimination, durability, etc., for the salt.
Thank-You!

 

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[TonyinCT]

I can help you with your purchase if you like but in the meantime the basic difference is that generally speaking the Excal will out perform the ID in more circumstances such as salt wet sand/water. It just goes deeper more often.If you need any more help please let me know.
Tony

 

[JP]

I am no expert with either. My only experience is with the Excalibur 1000.

I can tell you I don't get chatter with it when I operate the Excalibur in salt water. Some say it has a learning curve. Right out of the box I was finding coins, my first time with it to the beach.

One day I was at a place with my wife and we were watching an individual with a Beach Hunter I.D. He was digging here and there and seemed to be throwing most of what he was digging into the mangroves. I went home and got the Excalibur and returned to the same place where the gentleman was digging. I dug within 30 minutes around $3 in change and some junk jewelry. Either he wasn't interested in coins and jewelry or he just had them discriminated out, or his machine didn't find them.

The truth of the matter is that one has to know their machine for it to get them where they need to go. I know you won't be disappointed with the Excalibur. I am sure there are people that are going to swear by the Beach Hunter.

 

[Sandman]

I know both of these machines well. First off the ID is not a bad machine for the dry sand at a saltwater beach, but can become unstable in the waves at some locations due to black sand and salt together. The ID is only water proof to 20 foot, so it's not for diving. The ID needs to be ground balanced, Excel does not. ID comes with a floating coil which is ok on dry land but really is difficult to work in the water. (read Sucks) You can order a weighted coil for it however.

The Excal is much deeper and best of all, it ignores iron so it doesn't need to be ground balanced and it doesn't discriminate out the iron, it ignores it. This means it will sound off on a gold ring UNDER a nail while a BHID will null out and you won't hear the ring. It is waterproof to 250 feet and the coil is weighted so it doesn't pop to the surface. Rechargeable battery pack and it is very good on power use too. Very simple to operate even with 17 different frequencies to properly id the target. If it makes a noise, I dig it. Mine has paid for itself many times over an it is my "Go To Detector."

Tesoro does make a great water detector in the Tiger Shark. It is waterproof to 200 feet, you may change coils yourself, and it has the Lifetime Warranty. Saltwater mode switch for fresh or saltwater or wet sand use round out this detector. This is one sweet detector for us to use in the water.

 

[Foilman]

Sandman,
What about the Tiger Shark? Some people say the discrimination is no good! On my machine a round ferrous item still sometimes gives a good signal. I usually go all metal and then discriminate the at the low end (1 0r 2 setting). (Bandito uMax 2)
I don't mind digging the stronger signals, but I don't want to dig teeny iron all day. What is the discrimination like on the tiger Shark and does the Excalibur null all iron big and small?

I am kind of turned off by everything being hardwired on the Ex. Also a lot of people say it goes in for repair a lot. It seems that a lot of people turn around and put on tho WOT. There goes more money. Your thoughts?

Thank-You!

 

[Sandman]

Many people like the Tiger Shark because it does sound off with a broken sound on iron. Naturally the larger the iron target is, the more conductive it becomes and the circuits say it's good. The same goes for most detectors. The Excal now nulls out on iron unless it too is large, but the sound is different from a gold ring or even a coin where you can learn the sounds.

Most water detectors are hardwired to save having to send it in for repairs. Connections must be water tight, no easy task where us idoits come in. My oldest Excal only had to go in for repair once for coil trouble. You have to remember that some of the hunters that complain about certain detectors may be shills for another manufactures that aren't playing fair. Sometimes guys just get over enthused about their new detector that they think they got a good deal with and lie like a rug to conceal them getting cheated.

Some guys put on the WOT for more coverage and depth. These larger coils are also heavier than the stock sizes. If you can handle it, get as much coverage per sweep you can to have the chance to put the coil over a great gold ring. More coverage per hour equals more finds per hour. Why wasted your time using less than the best you can afford.

Time is the only thing you never get back.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

I have owned both as well, the BHID is a good machine, and it will work in the salt water, but you must be very careful with it to be sure the o-ring is clean, not one grain of sand and the cover is replaced properly when you change batteries or it will leak. I had the BHID and a friend had the Excal, didn't take me long to see I wanted an Excal. I kept the BHID as back up until recently trading it for the Sovereign GT.

Is the Excal worth the extra $300, YES with out a doubt. I have an Excal for the water and my backup for the Excal is another Excal. I also have the Sovereign GT with the WOT, got it from TonyinCT and you can not go wrong dealing with him!

 

[Kut2TheChase]

Been using the excal 1000 for a little over a month and am falling in love with it, I am frequently AMAZED at the things I dig up at 2 ft deep in wet sand. It nulls out (means goes silent) over iron, and I am learning the difference in tones, I will tell you I do know the sound of a penny damn well by now.
It's the ride up, blaze and crackle across the middle and ride down that the gold gives, unforgettable.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

You mean you can find penny's on the beach with your Excal?

 

[dahut]

Let me take a stab at the Tiger Shark, ok Sandman??

What about the Tiger Shark? Some people say the discrimination is no good! On my machine a round ferrous item still sometimes gives a good signal. I usually go all metal and then discriminate the at the low end (1 0r 2 setting). (Bandito uMax 2)
The Tiger Shark is an offspring of the Bandido/Eldorado line. It has the progressive DISC of those models (0-10). The DISC seems to have an ED-120 circuit, yet scales differently than the Bandido. It is way more open at the low end to accept the lower conductivity gold and it's non-linear.
I still get a 14K band at 7 on the DISC scale, yet I cut off dimes at 9-10. Nickles cut out about 6-7.

As for the DISC being no good, I can say be careful what you listen to. It works fine.
You'll be glad to know that even with the open low end it does NOT like small iron bitsies like hair pins, barrettes, screws, washers etc. This is true even at near zero DISC. They give a broken, crackly signal. This is good. There is little doubt what such signals represent, as a rule.
The only exception are chains. They dont give a clean signal and you can only get that at low DISC settings. Even then, it's also sort of choppy. Even the much ballyhooed Excalibur does no better on them.

Heres how I hunt the TS.
From zero DISC to about 2-3. Thats it. Now, depending on the size of the iron target, it will sound off on large iron at these low settings - but don't condemn the TS for that. There arent many detectors that wont! But, as you raise the DISC to around 3, even large iron begins to go crackly. At higher settings, it takes a hammer head to set it off.

This is all you want, by the way. You will dig everything else in the water and the TS will do fine in that regard. Good targets give good, clean 'whomps.' I put that same 14K band on the ground with a screw and a washer on top of it - and the TS had no trouble with it.

Hope this helps.

 

[Foilman]

dahut,

This is interesting. It sounds like it behaves like my Bandito 2. I wouldn't have a problem with that.The only thing with my machine is it goes a little wifty in the wet sand and it is not waterproof of course. Is this the one with the preset ground balance? Also what is the battery performance and the weight like?

Thank-You!

 

[dahut]

Is this the one with the preset ground balance?
No, the TS has manual GB

Also what is the battery performance and the weight like?
Batteries will last a long time. Many hours. I haven't changed em yet...and so on and so on.
I still get 6-7 beeps and Ive had the same set in there since the season started.

Weight? Heavy compared to say, a DetectorPro model. Built like a tank, though, as in rugged. That is a good thing in the rigorous world of water hunting.
Swing it enough and youll get stronger, anyway. Then it wont matter, eh?

 

[Jason in TN]

I have had both. I now own the Excal 800. The beach hunter works great in the salt water and wet sand. My problem with it was I got the coil on it that wanted to float up all the time. Was a pain in the arm for sure. It is a great detector as far as picking up targets as good or close to as good as the Excal. If you go with the beach hunter get the weighted coil if you plan to water hunt with it. If you plan to hunt the dry sand and wet sand and waters edge go with the stock coil as it is lighter.

 

[scaupus]

I know both of these machines well. First off the ID is not a bad machine for the dry sand at a saltwater beach, but can become unstable in the waves at some locations due to black sand and salt together. The ID is only water proof to 20 foot, so it's not for diving. The ID needs to be ground balanced, Excel does not. ID comes with a floating coil which is ok on dry land but really is difficult to work in the water. (read Sucks) You can order a weighted coil for it however.

The Excal is much deeper and best of all, it ignores iron so it doesn't need to be ground balanced and it doesn't discriminate out the iron, it ignores it. This means it will sound off on a gold ring UNDER a nail while a BHID will null out and you won't hear the ring. It is waterproof to 250 feet and the coil is weighted so it doesn't pop to the surface. Rechargeable battery pack and it is very good on power use too. Very simple to operate even with 17 different frequencies to properly id the target. If it makes a noise, I dig it. Mine has paid for itself many times over an it is my "Go To Detector."

Tesoro does make a great water detector in the Tiger Shark. It is waterproof to 200 feet, you may change coils yourself, and it has the Lifetime Warranty. Saltwater mode switch for fresh or saltwater or wet sand use round out this detector. This is one sweet detector for us to use in the water.

I know both of these machines well. First off the ID is not a bad machine for the dry sand at a saltwater beach, but can become unstable in the waves at some locations due to black sand and salt together. The ID is only water proof to 20 foot, so it's not for diving. The ID needs to be ground balanced, Excel does not. ID comes with a floating coil which is ok on dry land but really is difficult to work in the water. (read Sucks) You can order a weighted coil for it however.

The Excal is much deeper and best of all, it ignores iron so it doesn't need to be ground balanced and it doesn't discriminate out the iron, it ignores it. This means it will sound off on a gold ring UNDER a nail while a BHID will null out and you won't hear the ring. It is waterproof to 250 feet and the coil is weighted so it doesn't pop to the surface. Rechargeable battery pack and it is very good on power use too. Very simple to operate even with 17 different frequencies to properly id the target. If it makes a noise, I dig it. Mine has paid for itself many times over an it is my "Go To Detector."

Tesoro does make a great water detector in the Tiger Shark. It is waterproof to 200 feet, you may change coils yourself, and it has the Lifetime Warranty. Saltwater mode switch for fresh or saltwater or wet sand use round out this detector. This is one sweet detector for us to use in the water.

This reply is just for the record as folks use google to check these threads for years. the bh id is an interesting bird, and there's a lot more to it than is obvious at first. I had heard of its faults, but bought one because i'm too cheap to buy an excal, and i was a little afraid of the excal because most of the guys I know who use 'em keep a stable of 'em because one or more of 'em is usually on the fritz. I had a couple of sovereigns at different times, and without the meter, I had trouble distinguishing tones well enough to id stuff.

White's detectors are known for their ability to survive abuse like cockroaches, or B-17's. Even damaged, they keep on flying one way or another. Of course, if it doesn't detect well, survivablitiy would be worthless. The other day, I was on the wet sand in all metal mode, and got a fairly quiet signal that was too quiet to trigger the discriminate lights, and in discriminate mode it would not pick it up at all. I had to decide whether to dig or not, because it could have been a small iron rust flake, of which there were quite a few on this beach, and which had a tendency not to trigger the signal lights. I scooped, nothing. I kept scooping, and widening the hole as I deepened it, removing fallen sand as I went. I had a hole well over a foot deep...I'll be discrete as to how deep I think it was... before I pulled up the target...a nickel. I had the same experience about 3 months ago with a gold ring that gave me a solid signal. I had to keep scooping several times to reach it. I have a 12" scoop by the way. Each of these holes was deeper than the scoop.

It is also very sensitive to tiny pieces of metal, small aluminum or iron flakes like little nuggets give good signals. Tiny gold earrings, 1/3 of a pennyweight, signal loudly.

The floating coil,,,the old boogie man. That really put me off at first. Then I found a simple trick that almost entirely eliminated that as a factor in using the BH. I reversed the coil, which puts it closer to my body. It also prevents the coil from flipping up in surf. Simple mechanics makes the lift insignificant in this configuration, as your body is more nearly right over the coil.

About Iron. Let's say a gold ring is under a nail. First off...I run the BH in saltwater in All Metal, all the time, because it goes deeper in all metal than in discriminate. (That's not the case with my land detector, the white's eagle spectrum.) In all metal it will certainly not null out on iron, it will give a read for the iron, most likely, the red light. It will also give a yellow light for the gold ring, so you will see both red and yellow lights.
The indicator lights are red for iron, yellow for mid frequency like foil, gold and aluminum, green for high frequency like coins, some screwcaps, etc.

A multiple signal reading could be a bottle cap...or a ring under a nail. The behavior of the read will usually indicate what it is, and you become familiar with the various types of sounds and combinations of sounds and lights. the bottle cap bounces around, or it often gives a peculiar drawn out moaning sort of read. You can flip the switch to discriminate, and a bottle cap will give a clipped signal or no signal - most of the time. However, if i have any doubt, i dig anyway, because it could be a ring and a nail together. By the way, some of my friends with excals dig a lot of bottle caps, because bottle caps can give quite convincing coin signals on the excal. Anyway, if I get a red signal, and no yellow signal, I don't dig. I can be quite certain that its ferrous. I avoid digging a lot of ferrous trash that way.

Ground balance. There is effectively no ground balancing the BH in saltwater. Ground balance works fine on dry land, but in the saltwater it simply doesn't work as far as I can tell. The BH chatters in saltwater at higher sensitivities. You can reduce sensitivity and the chatter disappears, or you can just learn the difference between the sound that chatter makes and that a signal makes, which you do quite quickly. It's quiet on the wet sand, and you can put the sensitivity just about all the way up and the signal reaches down to about China, be prepared to dig in wet sand. If the excal is deeper in wet sand...well, god bless it, because that would be deep as hell.

i can say the bh is a very competent water machine for those who learn how to use it. And it's a monster on the wet sand. It's also a superb dry land detector, and in discriminate mode very useful in dry sand or grass parks. The sound of the signals in all metal, along with the lights indicating iron, gold, or silver range signals, can tell the operator with experience on this machine, pretty much precisely what's in the sand under the coil. All the same, I usually dig everything but a pure iron signal, just to be on the safe side.

You have to have a straight shaft for the excal or it will either kill you or drive you out of metal detecting.The guys who do the best with it, are the ones with deep pockets who have several of them. They always have one that works, and they absolutely have the utmost confidence in their ability to find gold and other valuables. Guys who don't have that much dough, or are too cheap to support several Excals in the style that they demand, end up staying at home a lot with their lone, cranky excal in the closet.

My two closest md buddies both use excals, they both have two of them, and one of them hasn't detected in months as neither machine is working, while the other one frequently resorts to his Tesoro Sand Shark because he needs a break from the physically very demanding excal.

Btw, I also have a sandshark which I use to take a break from the bhid. I think the bhid is easier to swing than the excal, but the sandshark is the sweetest little machine to use in the water. Too bad it doesn't discriminate.

The BHid is like a trusty bird dog. It may not have been the pick of the litter, but it's got a good nose, that is sometimes a great nose, and it keeps on dogging it no matter what you put it through. It's always ready and eager to go out with you. change the o-ring every couple of years, and that's about it.

For the guy with a modest budget who is only going to own one water detector that he hopes he will never have to spend more money on (other than a few bucks for 0rings), the bhid is a brilliant choice.

And should you ever have trouble, there is white's superb, friendly, fast and modestly priced repair service.

 

[Treasure_Hunter]

Having owned and used both I will take an excal every time.

I own 2 but has nothing yo do with failures, one has wot coil and other has 12x l15 sef butterfly coil, both are hard wired into controls.