My Experience with the ACE 250 Deluxe Sports Pack

The Garrett Ace 250

Ordering the ACE 250


I placed an order for my ACE 250 on 4 March 2012 via MetalDetector.com. Including delivery to RSA they worked out much cheaper than any local dealers could provide it for.


The going price in South Africa is about R5,000-6,000. The local dealers import their detectors and have disclaimers saying that they test the products when they arrive and ship it to customers in working condition. The risk is entirely with the customer should the device be faulty upon arrival.


Taking that into consideration I opted to order mine from the USA since the risk is all the same to me. I would rather save myself R1,000 and deal with the supplier directly than via the dealer as a proxy.


My detector arrived approximately 3 weeks after placing the order. Ofcourse, RSA customs added their own fee but I still saved a nice amount.


ACE 250 Unpacking & Contents


The package arrived in a large packing box which also contained some extras I ordered. The package contents comprised the following:

• Garrett Ace 250 Metal Detector Deluxe Sports Package 
• Pro Series Universal Standard Metal Detector Carry Bag (*)
• Garrett Armrest Pad for AT Series and Ace 150, 250 and 350 (**)
• Garrett Foam Handle Grip for AT Series and Ace 150, 250 and 350 (**)

*I decided that I wanted to keep all my detecting gear in one bag. This bag turned out to be large enough to fit a fully assembled detector with additional space for many more items. I usually dismantle the detector into 2 pieces when packing so that I can fit it in the small boot of my car.

**I ordered these for future wear and tear that always happens on things that become dirty and over-used.

The Sports Pack comes with the following "free" items which local dealers do not provide for free:

• Pro Series Unbreakable Composite Trowel - I used this for the first 2 searches and decided to get a retractable spade as the Trowel removes tiny amounts of earth. The end of the handle hurts one's hand in a strange way. Avoiding the end makes digging better but you must be conscious of this fact.
• Pro Treasure Finds Bag - I use this little zippable bag to store my headphones.
• Treasure Magazine Collectors Back Issue - I didn't read this, just flipped through.
• Pro Magnifying Glass - what am I supposed to do with this? Burn ants lol? My eye-sight is still 20/20.
• Pro Treasure Gloves - these are basically garden gloves for use when soil could contain things such as needles and sharp rusted objects.
• Pro Series Deluxe Tool Pouch - I have not used this. As nerdy as it already looks metal detecting I would rather not attach this thing to my belt. I have been wearing board-shorts so there is no belt to attach it to anyways.

One item that came with that I was surprised about is a pair of headphones as can be seen on the box of the ACE 250. The jack is the large stereo jack. I was planning on using my 3.5mm jack in-ears so I would have had to buy an adapter. Lucky me.

The ACE 250 comes with 4x AA batteries which were already placed in the housing.

This is the default Sports Pack Box which includes the larger search coil.

Assembling the detector was a bit frustrating at first. Attaching the top tube to the tube with the housing proved very difficult. The tube seems to become thicker towards the housing so I had to use a screwdriver to twist the tube up to get it clipped in.

Disassembling these two tubes is almost near impossible without breaking anything. This is why when packing my detecting I only disconnect the lower tube which connects to the search coil. The other tubes remain fixed. If the lower tube experienced the same problem I was planning on sanding the paint from the tube to make it fit.

Attaching the search coil to the rube also proved a bit difficult. The washers need to fit inside the part on the tube. There are holes in the washers that align with the pins on the rim on the tube attachment. When squeezing the washers inside the rims the holes tend to mis-align. It isn't a great fit but forcing it a bit kind-of works. I used a small screwdriver to force the pins through.

Using the ACE 250

When switching the ACE 250 on it has a short start-up time of about 4-5 seconds. During this time the screen flashes and makes 2 or 3 short beep beep sounds. Once the sounds are over the detector is good to go.

At first I gathered some coins I expect (hope) to find on beaches. Such as the 2 types of R5 and the R1 & R2. I took out some of my old large R1 and 50c coins as well. The 250 makes the same sound for all these coins. I think it also makes the same sound for the newer 50c down to 5c.

You will notice that coins make a deeper pinging sound than something such as scrap metal.

I found that items such as sinkers that fishermen use make the same sound as coins do. They also can fool you since they are much denser than coins and might appear to be much closer to the surface.

Getting to know the 250 takes time. After my third venture I can say that I can easily distinguish between the various sounds. I can also locate my finds reasonably well.

Sometimes you find an odd signal that sounds like a coin and then sounds like scrap. Most cases I found that it is scrap. When you just can't locate where this signal is coming from and resort to using the pinpoint function on the detector it probably IS scrap.

The Screen of the 250. Shown here the sensitivity is 3 bars below max.

For beach searching I used COIN mode and my sensitivity is set to 2 bars below maximum. I have been searching on wet dense beach sand as well as loose dry beach sand. These settings prove to be effective for locating coins.

I still ignore the depth indicators on the 250 and focus more on the location of the item. Regardless of whether the item is a coin or sinker I dig one big scoop and scatter the contents at least 2 feet away from the hole. The item could be in the wall of the hole you just dug so you don't want to mislead yourself thinking the item is in the excavated soil.

How I use the 250 to Metal-detect

It has taken me a bit of getting accustomed to the method of swinging the 250 in a decent search pattern. At some instances I swing it with my elbow held on my side and in other instances I hold it ahead of me inline with my hip. At the ends of each swing I stretch my arm out slightly so as to get the search pattern to be more uniformed.

At first I will swing without paying attention to swinging style until I detect something but generally I visualize the search ground in my mind as I swing my coil around taking note of a virtual path that I am covering so that I don't skip areas ahead of me.

I pace my footing in time with my swinging so that I don't skip the areas ahead.

When scanning I focus on an object in the distance and make my search pattern to end at that object. This is to make my coverage as straight as I can without having to demarcate the area with strings and pegs (which I have never done and don't intend on doing for beach searching).

I have learnt to ignore the small bleeps I get whilst searching as they could be junk or just interference. Setting my sensitivity beyond 2 bars from the top tends to give me some weird signals that I want to look into and they usually end up hard to look into. Most times I do give into these signals and dig I find nothing. Sometimes there are mineral rocks or even ore rich material if the beach is near a harbour which is maybe a major steel ore importer - I suspect these elements can throw the 250 off a bit.

Generally a coin signal is unique & fast enough to make you stop your swing immediately. To outsiders it might look as if you walked into a wall. Generally swinging over the same area should give up your signal again. If you need to resort to changing your swing by 90 degrees and the signal is still escaping you or the signal is a making a weird un-locatable sound then it probably just is scrap or interference - time to move on.

I found myself many times wanting to dig up any old signal but eventually you will decide to stop caring about the non-coin and questionable signals.

When I obtain a coin signal I scan the area for a more specific location. Depending on the feedback I get I will maybe increase sensitivity.

I move my coil to the left and right of the specific location and then up and down as well. In my mind I visualize the location. This location is marked out through the center spot of the search coil. I fix my gaze on something in the location and use the spade to dig out an area of about 15cm x 15cm, 10cm deep. Before I used to use the small spade which would have me pecking out plugs in the soil multiple times and maybe scraping off several layers of sand. The small spade was very inefficient but still did the job.

After removing the soil I check the hole to see if the signal is there. I don't see a point in scanning the soil I removed first. If the signal is still there I check the edges as well as half the time the coin is near the edge.

Depending on the soil condition if the coin is in the extracted sand I will brush through it lightly with my fingers. It's surprising how easy it is to miss the coin among the sand. Once or twice I flicked the coin away, but you can usually feel the coin when brushing through the sand.

Sinkers are easier to spot since they are bigger and sometimes still have some line attached to them.


I found that I preferred the larger search coil that came included in the sports pack. It seemed to cover a larger area and since beach items are scattered around it would prove easier to search. The smaller coil would only be useful if I wanted to search a bit deeper and more accurately.

On a beach I don't think there is the issue of a coin standing on its side. I think this problem only occurs inland with more dense soil types. When coins stand on their edge in the soil they might give off a different sound such as a scrap metal sound - it might appear to the detector as being a piece of wire.

Detecting on a beach will give you an idea of the amount of junk you can find. Imagine detecting inland where there is grass. Digging plugs up for every signal you find? I don't think so. I need a bit more skill in determining what is scrap and also how deep an item is.

Why I started metal detecting

What got me into the whole detecting thing was from watching Gold Rush Alaska & Bering Sea Gold. I was struck by the gold fever. I was so tempted to go prospecting but it seems the world law is that you must have a permit to prospect for gold. I think only in Australia do they have areas where you can prospect without a permit but there are many other areas in Australia where you must have one. The areas not requiring permits are basically there for people looking for social gold prospecting where they have competitions to see who can find the biggest nugget.

Unfortunately in South Africa you need to obtain permission from the land owner before you apply for your permit and it must state where you intend to prospect. Prospecting also includes panning for gold in rivers etc... awww.

I don't think the USA permit requires one to obtain prior permission from a specific land owner. All that is stipulates is that you after you have the permit you must obtain permission from the land owner. They don't have laws against gold panning in rivers, but it might differ from state to state. I have read articles of prospectors who do this in California. They even use mini dredges where they shovel the river soil into machines that separate the fine gold and tiny nuggets from the river soil. This is illegal in South Africa.

So I looked into rather trying metal detecting and stumbled onto this awesome metal detecting site where the author documents every adventure and is very generous with the number of photos he takes. www.metaldetectingworld.com

His articles made me very interested. So I thought I would give it a try. I love old coins and the aspect of searching for something. Searching for treasure like most little boys always dream about.