Mine detectors

M

Marruss

Tenderfoot
Mar 24, 2013
6
0
South West
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I have seen a few ex military mine detectors on ebay recently. A CEIA Mil-D1 and a Minelab F1-A4 for instance
Do these have any use other than their designed purpose?
I am new to detecting but thought a machine designed to find very small amounts of non iron metal at maximum depth may be a goodie.

Also being made for he Military wouldn't he be pretty robust?
 

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Most military mine detectors are clunky and sluggish and lacking in user-friendliness. It's the result of no market economy: the end user has no say in what is manufactured, it's all in the hands of bureaucrats. Besides which as a foot soldier, the generals have decided you're just a disposable grunt anyhow.

It's not quite a secret that some countries' military and police procurement departments purchase civilian market metal detectors for use by their military, finding the civilian metal detectors to be superior in field performance and far less expensive.

A few military mine detectors were developed by companies who are also in the consumer beep market and have some idea how to get it right. In the used market you might find a good buy, provided that you understand what it is you are buying and know it will meet your needs.

--Dave J.
 

I have a Minelab, Ceia, and Garrett. Robust, yes, but incredibly heavy. Response can be very sluggish, they are partly designed for crawling on the ground and sweeping slowly. Depth is pretty unimpressive.
 

Carl-NC said:
I have a Minelab, Ceia, and Garrett. Robust, yes, but incredibly heavy. Response can be very sluggish, they are partly designed for crawling on the ground and sweeping slowly. Depth is pretty unimpressive.
Click to expand...

Carl, you have a minelab f3? If so can you share a little more info? Thanks.
 

I don't have much to share, as I've only done a quick test with it. Mostly got it to peruse the packaging.
 

Karl,
Is yours a Mil D1? I am really curious as to how good these are. From what I can see they should go deep and pick up small pieces. Does it discriminate? It talks about an auto system.

Another similar one is the Metex 4.125.05
 

Marruss said:
Is yours a Mil D1? I am really curious as to how good these are. From what I can see they should go deep and pick up small pieces. Does it discriminate? It talks about an auto system.
Click to expand...

I think so. So far in the limited testing I've done on mine detectors, I've found that (a) they are not especially sensitive, (b) they are not especially deep, (c) they are PI with auto GB, and (d) they are packaged in super-collapsible super-rugged super-heavy housings. I can name 10 other detectors I'd rather take gold hunting, and 50 other detectors I'd rather take coin hunting.
 

A few years ago I got my XLT from a guy in Hawaii that had picked up a lot of them from Navy surplus, Navy uses them on gunnery ranges, it had some military marking on it and it was beat to he** and back, but it still worked great. Got it with hard case and all for $200. Sent it to Whites and had it rebuilt for $135, looks like new now. The Navy knows what to get to best do the job, Whites!!!!
 

Eric Wilson said:
Carl, you have a minelab f3? If so can you share a little more info? Thanks.
Click to expand...

So I have about a year of stick time with the minelab f3 in Afghanistan, an awesome system for sure, I found then disposed of over 70 IEDs with it and it never let me down once. But I also own a CEIA CMD and a Vallon VMC1 and both are great systems as well
 

The first metal detector I ever had was a WWII Surplus Mine Sweeper I received in 1969 for Christmas at age 13. This thing weighed more than I did. I found my first relic ever with this, an exploded piece of Hotchkiss Shell. There are some Utube videos, older video's of Mr. Tom Dickey, a renowned relic hunter from Georgia here back in the 60's. In his video's, Mr. Dickey is using the same old mine sweeper that I had. My, how times and technology have changed.
 

I'm using a CEIA CMD it's fine to use for beach hunting (waterproof to 6.5 ft) also works well when gold prospecting.
Not as heavy as some make them out to be, about the same weight as Fisher Impulse.

ivanll
 

I use to have an old JNA mine sweeper. The machine was a strange version of a BFO, but very stabile, reliable and robust non the less. The "probe" had some 2 to 3 kg of weight, way too much for a day of hunting. It had no discrimination at all, depth wise was somewhere in the Garrett ACE 250 range, but the snsitivity for shallow targets was unbelivable, it was able to report a small piece of tiny hair-diameter wire. Intresting, but not a hobby detector.
 

After 38 years in the military I have two words for you if you plan on getting a military detector...."Customer Service":laughing7:
 

You are absolutley right. Since i built all my machines i have no customer service problem (though i do miss blameing somone else for my mistakes...). Very old detectors are rather simple to fix, even though most elements are obsolete properly chosen modern substitute usually works. Modern devices with high integration, custom designed ICs and fairly protected software are quite a different pair of shoes.
 

hi, i have a problem with mine, when i turn it on after a few seconds it marks a code error in leds tha are 2 6 8 10 12 and 14, do you know anything about it? any help is welcome, thanks

Is a vmc1 vallon detector
 

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