Types of Hand Held Metal Detectors

1. Commercial/Industrial
Commercial use: Generally, these types of hand held metal detectors are used in correctional facilities and do not have all of the special features that other hand held metal detectors have. Security enforcement at places like the airport, hospital, government buildings and schools usually use these types of hand held metal detectors. Sensitivity settings are very important for commercial use of hand held metal detectors. Usually these are three sensitivity settings for hand held metal detectors.

Detection performances:
Level 1: small handguns and knives
Level 2: razor blades, handcuff keys
Level 3: .22 caliber bullet, metal shanks

2. Professional
Professional Hand Held Metal Detectors: These types of hand held metal detectors can now locate treasures to 100 feet deep! As humans we cannot see directly below the surface of the ground and standard metal detectors using transmit/receive search-coils are limited in depth. In addition, standard hand held metal detectors is restricted to a small scan area. It can be difficult for the serious treasure hunter to search large areas with any degree of accuracy or to penetrate more than a couple of feet into the ground without a professional hand held metal detector.

When someone has a secret treasure you can be sure that it will be deep enough that it will not be unearthed accidentally. Even those objects buried fairly shallow (for quick recovery) will sink over a period of years to a depth that may be unreachable to even today's most sensitive hand held "coin type" metal detectors. The hand held metal detectors that were considered "professional" have been, until recently, priced out of reach for most hobby/semi-pro treasure hunters. You will find that there are several great websites that have tested many different types of hand held metal detectors and work together with the manufacturers to be able to offer these professional hand held metal detectors at a price that is affordable. If you have a "real" treasure lead...you need a "real" treasure detector, a professional hand held metal detector. You do not want to leave that recovery for someone else to accidentally find.

3. All-Purpose
General purpose: While using a hand held metal detector, knowing the specific purpose for which you are looking will allow you to better locate that particular object. However, if you are wanting to simply search for coins, rings, or jewelry, usually an All-Purpose hand held metal detector will do the trick. There are several different styles of All-Purpose hand held metal detectors that allow the consumer to choose what will work best for them. These can be great to use around the house or in the backyard when needing to search for lost items. All-Purpose hand held metal detectors are generally the most reasonable in price.

4. Beach/Water
Underwater, beach, surf and diving detecting: Standard or All-Purpose hand held metal detectors can be used for limited metal detecting near or in a water environment. If the hand held metal detector has a submersible searchcoil rather than a waterproof coil, that hand held metal detector can be used to search on wet sandy beaches, and even in very shallow water. Making sure no water enters the electronic controls is very important to secure the longevity of your hand held metal detector. The perfect hand held metal detector to hunt in shallow waters, surf and deep water are those metal detectors that are fully enclosed in a waterproof housing. Without the full protection of these encapsulated housings, no metal detector would be able to search underwater to recover those hundreds of thousands of coins, rings, and jewelry beyond the reach of a standard or All-Purpose hand held metal detector.

5. Gold Metal
Gold and Prospecting: When you're serious about gold hunting and prospecting with hand held metal detectors, it’s good to know that all manufacturers have found that standard and all-purpose hand held metal detectors cannot sufficiently search for gold. If you do not have a hand held metal detector designed specifically for hunting gold nuggets and gold veins, you probably haven’t been very successful. This can definitely be disappointing and the results of your hunt may seem pointless. For gold, you need a hand held metal detector that can find very small nuggets as well as slightly larger nuggets at medium depths. The deepest penetrating models for larger gold nuggets that are the most difficult (but the most valuable) to search and locate will definitely be necessary.

6. Relic Metal
Relic Metal Detectors: Relic hand held metal detectors are required to search for relics of all sizes and shapes. Many relics are not complete and present unique detecting requirements to recover relics and artifacts as small as a minnie ball only a few inches in the ground to a large cannonball 5 to 6 feet in the ground. The recommended relic hand held metal detector must be able to find the small target and the larger targets with equal ease. It must have excellent audio response signal able to indicate both shallow and deep targets. Automatic ground balance is always necessary. The hand held metal detector must be able to accept both large and small search-coils depending on the ground conditions and terrain.

7. 2-Box Deep Searching
2-Box Deep Searcher Metal Detectors: This type of hand held metal detector is generally used for cache hunting and treasure hunting for treasures that were buried and hidden rather than merely lost or misplaced. Treasure caches are usually large and usually deeply buried. The larger the cache is, the more treasure to be found. The main requirements for this type of metal detecting are totally different than hunting for single coins or clusters of coins and jewelry. While hand held metal detectors with larger diameter search-coils can reach greater depths, when you're looking for deep buried targets you need to equip yourself with the proper metal detector, a 2-box deep searcher. If you already own a single coil detector you need a two box deep searcher to find the deeper caches and hidden hoards that single coil detectors simply cannot find.

Other hand held metal detector information topics:

Specifications of hand held metal detectors
How hand held metal detectors work
Featured brands of hand held metal detectors

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