Garrett Ace 250 Metal Detector with Submersible Search Coil

I lost my wedding ring in my friend's backyard at a hibachi party (don't ask), with this wonderful device me and my 2 year old son were able to find it and had fun doing it. Can't wait to see what other stuff we can find.Product is well made and the instructions are wonderful, takes a little bit of tinkering to dial in the settings depending on what and where you're looking, but like I said we found the wedding ring so huge win so far!

Sometimes you can "feel" the extra care a company puts into its products, and the Ace 250 brings a lot of that feeling on. The fit and finish are great, it is extremely lightweight, assembly is super quick and requires no tools, and even the batteries are pre-installed. These are all signs of a well-thought-out tool, not just a toy or a careless next generation iteration of an existing technology.Pull a few pieces from the box, press two rubber washers in place (friction washers for the coil pivot), screw together one plastic bolt (plastic, since by coil and don't want metal!), and screw on the coil cable connector. Then press PWR and you are ready to go!But better yet, watch the very professional video on how to use the Ace first. It isn't full of amazing surprise finds with cheesy actors, rather, it is very much like a military training video, with a professional voice talent carefully enumerating the features and functions of the Ace while the viewer sees a man demonstrate each step or method at what seems to be a public park. I can't tell you how wonderfully straightforward and "clean" this video is, but I suspect the quality comes from Garret's experience with training videos for commercial/industrial products. And the video is specifically for the Ace 250. Also, watch the pin-pointer video; once you get into the field I think you'll quickly see the usefulness of the handheld pin-pointer, I know I'm planning on getting one.As for features, this machine seems to do everything I imagined doing with it and should run over 20 hours on four AA batteries, which makes more sense to me than two 9V batteries like many detectors use. It also has its own speaker, so you don't have to have headphones...you'll likely want headphones with their own volume control, though, but if the speaker is too loud at a public place (or just annoying the rest of the family) you can cover the speaker holes with some tape to muffle the sound. The machine shows type of metal and depth. It lets you set custom detection profiles and sensitivity. It even keeps its memory and settings when turned off, which is important because you'll want to turn it off each time you stop to dig. A "custom profile" is essentially a filter that instructs the machine about what kinds of metals should trigger a sound alert--the display will always indicate any find.Perhaps the best feature of all is the pinpointing. While it doesn't serve the same way as a handheld pin-pointer would during the actual dig, it is invaluable for locating where to dig. Watch the video for instructions, but note that along with the X technique you can also press the pin-point button and do a fine scanning of the small area with the find to get a mental image of the detection circle around the object--your mind will "see" a disc that is "bright" (loud) at the center and fades off at the edges. You can also use a spiral motion you let "decay" into a simple circle and when you can make a circle with the detector's coil that has a perfectly even pin-pointing tone you know that the object is dead center of this circle. Scanning, especially, can be useful for larger, irregularly shaped objects, because your mind is forming a fuzzy image of the object's shape...just don't dig for a buried cable!As for the function of the machine, I could not have imagined it to be this good. It tells you pretty much exactly what is down there and how for down it is. The video says it can take 100 hours to become proficient at picking up on the sounds and indicators, but the truth is after only about 2 hours you'll already be growing a "third eye" for what lies beneath.For example, you quickly come to recognize that short, nearly "phantom" blips are foil wrappers, that having two finds very near one another is not that uncommon, and that large iron objects (say, an old drain cover) may sound like coin-iron-coin rather than just a lot of iron.One thing that is under-emphasized is that detecting is really about digging, or at least scraping. Doing this in a way that doesn't mess up grass, etc., is mentioning in the video, but if you have to travel to get to where you are detecting, be sure to have along a small planting trowel, some sort of dully pointed metal rod for a probe, a heavy nylon brush, a lighter-weight nylon brush, and a jug of water. You'll quickly see why.

I got this metal detector for my birthday recently, because I had been expressing an interest to my wife to get into the "sport" of metal detecting. She wasn't very hot on the idea, telling people that she didn't want a husband who walked around the local park in black socks and sandles, while listening to his metal detector over headphones -- but she reluctantly agreed to buy it for me. I watched the enclosed video, which taught me how to use the machine in about 15-20 minutes. I showed the video to my 12 yr old girls, and they also learned it's operation very quickly. It's true that this device is simple enough for a child to use, once you go over the basics. We bench-tested it, as recommended, and took it out to a local park for our first use. We found a lot of garbage while detecting in the "all metal" mode, but understood we've got to "pay our dues" in that mode for a while to really learn our detector's subtle change in tones, etc. After that we took it to a nearby sledding hill, and spend a day finding bottle caps, nails, and scrap metal at the top of the hill. A little frustrated, we detected our way to the car past the bottom of the hill, and found 4 coins in a matter of minutes. Your luck with metal detecting can change just about that fast. Since getting this product, I've also ordered the Garrett Probe, the Lesche digging tool, the Garrett Sharshooter Pinpointer, the Garrett Master Sound Headphones, and a general carrying case I can use to keep the detector in my vehicle. The hobby sure is addictive! If you're like me, you'll find yourself up late at night doing "research" on locations to metal detect, and the kids have even got into that aspect -- which has been a great way to interest them in local history. They have already suggested several sites for us to explore next weekend, and are learning the terminology with me about finding "targets", and what a strong signal is, etc. I really feel it's bringing us closer together, and giving us a common interest to explore.**UPDATE** -- After using the 250 for a while, I realized that I was walking over / missing deeper, smaller targets, and so I got to wondering what all I was leaving behind. Some buddies took their AT Pro's behind the 250, and found a lot of missed targets -- so I was convinced to upgrade to the AT Pro instead, and returned my 250. I also didn't feel comfortable with something that isn't waterproof, in case it rains, or if I do want to detect in a river and accidentally drop it, etc... I deducted 1 star for the discrimination issues, lack of depth, and not being waterproof -- but this is not a bad little detector when you first start out!

Very happy with the delivery, price, quality and performance.

The design and handling of this metal detector is comfortable to use. Great Christmas gift. Looking forward to using it a lot when weather is decent.

For a bottom of the line metal detector, it works great. I did buy a cheap pair of headphones with volume control because the beeps and pings are very loud with no volume control on this metal detector. I, also, bought rechargeable batteries. Highly recommend for a beginner. Thanks!