Garrett Ace 250

Excellent for the price

C. Hattaway in Mullins,SC -
I enjoy metal detecting and have for years.I have tried many of the top of the line machines and own a few of them.I purchased the Ace 250 for my wife to get involved in the hobby although it did not work.

I decided to test it against one of my detectors"the ID Excel" I was impressed!! This was my first time using it and was quite simple to operate.I read alot of reviews about the talk of cheap plastic, wobble ect.. but almost all new detectors have plastic housings to reduce weight and almost all have flaws when you look for them, try swinging a older CZ-7 for 8 hours on a all day hunt, it's tiresome so weight makes a difference especially at the end of the day!

I used my Excel against the 250 since both are lower priced by brand but with a price gap of $275-300, both machines air tested at around 11-13 inches using a quarter,so I proceded to my test plot where I had many coins planted up to a depth of a max of 8" several days earlier, remember these coins have no halo,so depth/discrimination will differ in the field.

Both performed on the money as far as accurate discrimination, including silver and gold test.The 250 did well up to the 8" farthing I planted which I detected with the Excel at a sensitivity setting of 5 but had to bump the 250 up to the 7th bar to get a clear tone but it did give a faint reading as well as a accurate reading at 6th bar but was unable to run the detector an the 7th bar due to soil mineralization and chatter otherwise the coin may have been missed swinging fast so I advise slower close level to the ground sweeps for the best results on deeper coins.

I had no problem pinpointing, all the finds were in the area of the D on the search coil,the depth reading was just as accurate as the Excel.I have not took it to my hunting sites but plan to but with what I have seen it performs quite well and I'm sure it will do well.It does have features some of the more expensive machines lack such as the factory preset modes,auto ground tracking,notch out features and more.Garret even offers several coils for the Ace line which Fisher does not offer for the Excel.

Overall not bad for $200, a great detector for beginners that performs well.Why go out and pay "big bucks" for a detector when it may set in the closet as many people let them do because they lost interest in the hobby.It takes time, patience,motivation,research and dedication to make any hobby work especially detecting,so dont set too high of expectations and plans to bring home pockets of silver and gold rings it takes time,thats why many good detectors get bad reviews.

I have searched several excellent old sites for hours only to dig trash and come home empty handed but tomorrow will always be better!Happy Detecting!!

Feb 07, 2007

57 Yes
0 No

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Good machine for the money

grnpt_dtkr in brooklyn usa -
Bought this detector about 4 months ago, used it all summer. Actually it was this site that made me decide to buy the ace 250.

For $212 nothing can come close to this machine, but it has it weaknesses. Does not do well in surf/ wet sand at all, depth is wrong alot of times. Been using it in parks alot, getting about 6-7 inches max, in discrim mode. Pinpointing works good, but doesnt not discrim in pinpoint mode. If youre working in trashy ground, can be a little confusing.

Regardless, a great entry level detector, nice and light too and breaks down to fit in my backpack.

Jan 09, 2007

20 Yes
1 No

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I've owned 3 previous metal detectors the ACE250 my 4TH

Bill in Charlotte, NC USA -
The ACE 250 has the potential to be the best. Having spent many hours learning the other 3 with great finds, after just 2 lunch hours I am picking this up much faster due to the simplicity of the ACE 250. In this short time I have found 1 mercury dime, 4 pennies, a barber dime and 3 cub scout scarf holders. Pinpointing takes practice, but it works. Study the manual and watch the DVD. I'm learning but catching on fast.Thank you Garrett for a quality machine that works.

Dec 29, 2006

16 Yes
1 No

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Best bang for the bucks

Rodney in Jax, Fl. -
We have pulled wheat pennies up at a depth of 10-12 inches and it works well on the beach turning the sensitivity down a notch. Great detector for the price. Great starter machine or backup.

Dec 17, 2006

16 Yes
2 No

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Not bad, but.....

Steve Park in Columbus, MS -
I've been using the ACE 250 for about 2 months now, and while it's nice to be able to get the bells and whistles of a more expensive machine on this Garrett unit, it hasn't replaced my old Garrett Marksman yet. My biggest gripe is the Pinpointing feature, and I'm not the first to complain about this. With my particular machine I find it nearly impossible to locate all but the biggest targets (silver halves or quarters)to within 6 inches or so before even attempting to pinpoint. Once I begin to pinpoint, the fact that the machine goes to "all metal" mode for pinpointing makes it just about worthless in any area that may have trash, from tiny foil bits to wire or pulltabs (or yes, possibly another target worth digging). At times I've had trouble even getting an original signal back after the first sweep, even after going to "all metal" mode.
In my opinion the machine just isn't capable of narrowing it's own finds down to a respectably small enough area. In one instance when I first started using the machine, I had a solid hit that registered as a dime at 4". Probing revealed nothing, more sweeps indicated the target had "moved" about 3" to the left. More probing, nothing. More sweeping, and all I could determine was that somewhere in about a 10" circle there was a dime at 4". Pinpointing told me that it was within about a 12" circle, the opposite of what I wanted out of pinpointing. After digging a hole a foot in diameter, I found a penny at 10" deep (and with no other target or trash). With my old detector it would have been right under the "X" on the coil. After two months, I'm only able to cut my digging area down by about 3".
Generally I find more with the ACE 250, but that's because I can't trust the machine to tell me what the target is, where it is exactly, or how deep it is. So along with more keepers I'm getting a LOT more trash, but with age I've gained some patience I guess. I have gotten better than I used to be with this detector, but it's still not good enough for me to give it a rave review. Be prepared to spend a LOT OF TIME with this machine, learning it's stregths and weak points, and try every pinpointing method in the book (online, on the instruction video, what you can figure out on your own) before you're able to dig the nice little holes and pop out the target with a screwdriver. And in my experience, that will still be a rare occurence.

Dec 13, 2006

26 Yes
4 No

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Ace doing great here in the Netherlands

Mr.Orange/Jhonn Feikens in Muntendam Groningen The Netherlands -
I bought the ace 250 a few days ago and found out that it is a huge improvement over my treasure ace 100 I had before.
this is my first digital detector and as such i'm not a real expert but I already love the yellow-fellow!
The biggest improvement must be that I get a estemet for the source of the ping (coins,trash and what kind of metal)
I'm verry pleased and award this detector the highest score.
jhonn feikens

Dec 09, 2006

10 Yes
2 No

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It is a heck of a machine

Arturo in South Texas -
I used to use Bounty Hunter detector and other brands.
I found the 250 well worth the price and more.
I was having problems with the pinpointing until I followed some suggestions that I saw on forums .
I haven't really used the Bounty Hunters too much lately.
HH Arturo

Nov 02, 2006

25 Yes
10 No

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Light Weight/great price

D.B. Cooper in Ohio/South Caolina -
I have used various metal detectors for maybe 10 years. I started with a cheap Rat Shack model and it sucked. I switched to a treasure ace 300 and I performed well, I then got a minelab soverien pro. It work well but was so heavy. I finally got a ace 250 pro. It has eveything to go out and play with simple operation. I search in all metal mode, cause sometimes you never know what is actually in the ground. I give it 5 stars for price and functions. Best money I have spent in a while.

Jul 27, 2006

107 Yes
1 No

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ace 250- great unit

bobbybass in brooklyn usa -
just got my ace 250 in the mail today, took it out to the local park to test it, very impressed. read negative reviews about the lack of ground balancing, and some other negative reviews and was concerned about it not being a good unit. Well, it is a great unit, well made and very simple to use, pinpointing works great and the preset discrim modes works excellent as well, overall- very happy with this since i am moving up from a cheap bounty hunter unit, this is wayyy better!

Jul 06, 2006

35 Yes
0 No

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Nice Metal Detector @ Nice Price

Luciano A. Mendes in Florianopolis, SC Brazil -
As a beginner, I started suffering a little, until I could understand a minimum about how the ACE250 behaves. Then, quickly, I collected a lot of very nice stuff.

Definetly, itŽs not perfect - sometimes, it falses. But I think one can live with it without loosing interest, because most of times it works very well.

Suggestion: the ACE250 might have a LCD light push-button, so that the display could be seen at night [ when Garrett implement this feature, IŽll claim the royalties for my idea ;) ]

Regards,

Luciano

Jul 04, 2006

8 Yes
3 No

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