Garrett Ace - What a find :D

I recently bought myself a new metal detector (we its new for me) from an online second hand shop. It was listed as a Garrett ACE 200i for £159.99GBP. not too bad .. nothing much available on the market at a reasonable price, so that will have to do! After paying my hard earned £££ across to the vendor, I decided to take another look at the advertising picture (just a small picture of the box it comes in). Then I saw something written on the box that made me do a double take .. WHAT, that cannot be right! I Zoomed in to get a better look  ... Yes, the box says the item is a Garrett ACE 300i, yet the description says its a 200i. Maybe the previous owner has bought themselves a new detector and used the box to take the old one to the shop in. Surely the vendor wouldn't make such a mistake?


Well today has been like Xmas, the anticipation was killing me, when will it arrive and did I get the ACE 200i, ACE 300i model or did I get scammed???.

I had to wait for the DPD Driver to arrive with my much awaited parcel. Why do mornings last soo long??? ... To try and alleviate some of the anxiety, the wife decided that I should to go out and take the dog out for a long walk. What a great idea, I'll be able to get a couple of hours of peace from our little fur baby after the walk, hopefully she will be snoozing in her bed when the delivery finally arrives.
I get back from our long walk and check the delivery drivers schedule and its to arrive between 13:18 and 14:18. Any minute now! I hear a van door close and I'm at the window before the dog ... nope not yet. I settle back down in my armchair, the clock still ticking.. A little while later I hear another van door go, again I'm up faster than the dog and eagerly looking out the window ... WooHoo! I cry to myself, 'It's Here!" I shout out loud, as I dash through the house to grab the front door keys.. The front door is open before the delivery driver makes it up the driveway! Thank You, I say, as I take the parcel from him. Its Here... This parcel is Huge, yet very light! I sure hope its in here, I quietly think to myself .. I hope I have not just bought an empty box!

Grabbing a utility knife I carefully start unwrapping the parcel, cutting the tape and peeling it back, as to not damage anything. I take off the outer layer of black shrink wrap to find layers upon layers of large bubble, bubble wrap (enough to half fill my wheelie bin). Eventually get to the box, apprehensively I look... well it does say Garrett ACE 300i on the outside at least.. I just hope the contents match what it says on the outside.

Eagerly I open the box, well its not new, but it looks like it has been looked after at least.. The box has a few small tears on the inside where the shafts are stored and the machine is little bit dirty but nothing a damp cloth cannot fix.. The lower stem shaft seems quite scratched where grit has obviously got caught between it and the camlocks but that should not affect performance and nothing that cannot be buffed out with some fine grit sandpaper/Wet&Dry.

Well lets see what I have got, I carefully lift the control section out of the box and turn it over ... NO WAY!!! its a Garrett ACE 300i ... Nice one, I quietly say to myself, with an immense feeling of pride and luck. I just paid £100 less than the asking price for a new one! well I better test it .. just in case it is faulty or something.. sods law says I will have to send it back!

I carefully get all the parts out of the box ready to assemble the machine ... NO! there's no User guide included! 20 seconds later I'm on my phone and on the Garrett Website, downloading the Instruction Manual for my machine. A quick scan read later and realise it is a really quick and easy machine to assemble and set up.

A couple of minutes later, its all set up and ready to power on. I open the battery bay and there are 4 EverReady batteries already sitting in there! Ok, let see if this thing starts! I press the power button and it gives a reassuring beep, the batteries seem to be brand new (the unit is showing full charge). Time to test it..

I take the detector out onto the garden lawn and start to give it a swing, it instantly starts to bleep. OK, that's odd there shouldn't be anything there, I spent hours going over the garden on several occasions with my old metal detector (the Dario MD-3006SS VLF) and thought I had cleared everything out! Maybe I have a wrong setting or something, or maybe the detector is faulty?

OK, time for an air test! .. I put the detector up onto the wooden garden table and everything seems quiet. Shaking my hand (the one with the wedding ring on) about 6-8" away from the coil, gives a loud, high pitched bleep.. that seems to work ok, Satisfied, I grab a small iron nail and swing that in front of the coil, the ACE 300i sings out with a low Brrp. Next, I grab a small coin and again the ACE 300i sings this time with a medium tone. Quite happy with the air tests I decide to turn the sensitivity down a bit and try the garden lawn again.

Again the Garrett 300i goes mad.. and starts chirping and giving all types of signals. ok, I think to myself.. it seemed ok on the air tests .. maybe something needs adjusting. I change the setting from all metal and set the discrimination to block out iron and give it another go. All quiet this time.. I give it a few more swings and then it bleeps giving a high pitched bleep. This time it is bleeping at a particular spot.. There must be something there! Excitedly I dash to the garden shed and grab my nearest digging tool .. I got to see what it just found.

No sooner than I had broken ground there is a shout coming from the upstairs window, it's my loving wife. 'Are you digging up my beautiful lawn again?' she cries. I look back up at her and smile, 'only a little bit' I reply, 'Don't worry I'll leave it as I found it.' I continue digging and find a large piece of iron (possibly a rusty bolt). I pull it out of the hole and swing the metal detector over the hole again (it shouldn't be picking up the iron I think to myself) again the detector sings out with the same high pitch beep and I continue digging, then I come across an iron nail buried in the ground. I pull the nail out and swing the detector over the hole again, again the detector bleeps loudly, the same high pitched beep. I sweep the detector over the iron objects found in the lawn and there is no sound coming from the detector, yet it does register on the display where the iron has been notched out - Well that seems to be working ok, I wonder what it is? so I continue digging, the hole getting bigger and deeper (getting to 10" dia and 7" Deep). I can feel my wifes eyes  burning down on me from the upstairs window as she watches me digging up the manicured lawn (I'm the gardener too, BTW  ).

I'm now down to 8-9" deep and my trowel strikes something in the soil. I see a flash of something glistening in the hole. A Ring! I begin to think to myself as I see that familiar circular shape looing back at me. I carefully extract the hoop and knock the pellet of soil out of its centre with my thumb. Rubbing the remaining soil off between thumb and finger I suddenly realise its not a ring, but a sawn off piece of copper pipe that someone must have dropped years ago. I check the hole one more time and all is clear. I fill in the hole and put everything back as I found it.
I try swinging the detector again (yes its still showing I have loads of iron objects hidden under the lawn - Something for another day!) and get to another point just a few steps away on the lawn which gives a high pitched beep. I quickly check the coast is clear and start on a new hole, this time the first item is a rusty iron nail, followed by a bronze screw, followed by an Old EPNS (electro plated nickel silver) Table Spoon!, a 20pence piece from 1982 and finally a 1pence piece (which needs more cleaning to be able to see the date).

It seems like the Garrett ACE 300i is a far superior machine as compared to my old Dario detector. No wonder I was having so much trouble setting up that old machine, all the iron pieces in the ground were making it almost impossible for it to detect anything clearly even with discrimination enabled. Too much noise!

The Garrett ACE 300i is a keeper! it performed supremely in my opinion and was the best buy I've made in years! WHAT A FIND! I'm really looking forward to letting it stretch its/my legs and see what great things we can find together! .. (I also feel the urge to see what other things are hidden under our lawn that my old detector missed! as I have found a few more items that are ringing over 60 on the detector that are crying out to be Dug UP!!!) My wife has also suggested I take it to the beach when we go next .. woohoo! looks like a trip for the weekend!

 

 
 

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