Metal Detectors . which one?

[Tarkwin]

My club is looking for a new metal detector. I am hoping for some advice and discussion of the pros and cons of the model your club has.

T.

[TJ Mason]

My club uses a Viking 5, and it's a long way better for archery than most I've encountered.

It's a non-motion type detector. That is, it doesn't retune itself when you stop moving the head. If you see someone repeatedly sweeping over the same area and getting a brief bleep each time, they're using a motion type detector. With non-motion ones, the bleep stays on when metal is detected. This allows you to sweep along the direction of shooting to see whether the detected object is about the length of an arrow.

It's decent (though not perfect) at rejecting ferrous metals. It only has two controls - on/off/coarse-tuning and fine-tuning. And that's all you need.

It's pretty cheap as well - about £90, IIRC.

you get what you pay for with detectors but if its just for finding arrows on grass most cheap ones will do the job, if its for field archery you might want to upgrade a bit, detecting is my other hobby when i am not doing archery and i find my tesoro sliver sabre will do the job,although they are rather sensitive. the detector i use most for finding lost arrows is my laser hawkeye,just put it on all metals and it will pick up a point on a carbon arrow or the uni-bush with no problems, i did test this out once and put a uni bush and a point into hole almost a foot deep, picked it up very easily, there are many detectors on the market, get a good one and then use it on the beach when away from archery, great fun.

[Bald Eagle]

Viking 5 Tarkers, picks up Alloy only, not ferrous, click on their website, tell them that you are an archery club and you'll get it cheaper. We have two in our club.

[Schme1440]

I know nothing about Metal Detectors but I will say dont buy the cheaper ones. We keep buyinh cheap ones and they suck. Spend a little extra and they will work better and last longer.

Oh and dont leave them by the boss while shooting cos you will shoot it. Well someone in our club did anyway.