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Fisher F5

Price: $550
Avg. Score: 5 stars! 4.59
Based on 22 reviews

Avg. Durability: 5 stars!4.88
Avg. Ease of use: 4 stars4.50
Maximum detection depth
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Fisher F5

April 04, 2012
I was getting a new detector and got a Garrett gf 1350 and it didn't work right. So I sent it back and went to Cabelas and bought the F5 for 499. 00$. I must say I love it. When I get bored I go out in the yard and am amazed at what I have found. . . recently I found a bb at 6" deep I was amazed of course I would of never found it without the Garrett pro pointer lol. Surprisingly a few days later I found a pellet at5" down. An absolutely amazing detector. The only thing I'd like to get is a 11" DD coil just to see what the difference is. I am absolutely happy with the F5 and the price.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

324

Honest Mid-Range All Purpose

August 08, 2011
This is the first Fisher I've owned, among 3 Garretts and 2 Tesoro's since 1984. I'm really sorry I never paid much attention to Fisher brand in the past. This detector uses an engineering coupler of analog and digital, huge display, user friendly settings, with knobs mostly.
I like this most of all. It's all 'YOU' with your settings and ground balancing, which is some what automatic, for keeping up to changes, once you get going. Read the manual. Stock coil a little small for relic hunting, so, if thats your area of interest, have to buy the larger 11 DD coil, but must be the right coil, Freq. Matched to this detector.

You can't just buy any coil, and make it work with this system. F5 Freq. Matched only. Check with Fisher, if you don't understand. Love the whining burp sounds this unit makes, over other brands. Sounds like a cat, and you can change the sounds it makes, along with tiny minor freq. If getting spook sounds in search area. Like I said, read the manual.

For a mid range all-purpose detector, this is a dream, and a keeper for life. Thank you, engineers at First Texas Products, and Gerhard Fisher.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

578

My opinion of fisher f5 detector

July 26, 2011
I work in Calibration lab in the Midwest where we have good soil to use very cheap detectors with decent results. My F2 will find as much as my F5 except I have much more control.
Period that is the difference here in the Midwest it does not matter as much due to soil conditions, (good black dirt with some clay and sand).

I do love my detector and think for the money you cannot go wrong! It is light and easy to use. It is also very accurate to telling you what you've found as long as you use the digital numbers as your guide. Does need a volume control!

Overall Rating 4 stars

2421

Its unreal

June 29, 2011
Just bought one about a month ago and it is certainly money well spent. The first thing I tested it on was lead sinkers and nails buried in a designated spot in the backyard. I used 1 inch nails and sinkers the size of a pea. All buried between 4 and 7 inches deep. Well I put the F5 to the test and she passed with flying colours. It gave me what the target was and the depth, give or take an inch.

And on the beach, well I haven't found anything very old but I have found about 50 dollars in coins :)

Overall Rating 5 stars!

335

F5-An Honest, Easy To Use Detector

June 21, 2011
I am always buying, selling, and trading detectors. I have had most all of the high end detectors and I have done quite well with them.
Recently I have had to down size my detector inventory because of health issues. I was in the market for a light weight, responsive detector that I was able to use for two to three hours straight. This is about the limit for my swinging so I wanted something light.
The F5 is first, a very light detector. Second, it is a very easy to use detector. A relative new detectorist could be up and running in a couple of hours.
The ground balance is a snap. The controls are right in front of you. There are no menus or back buttons to fool with.
Every single adjustment is either a knob of clearly marked push button. All of your setting are quickly displayed on the large screen.

The vdi numbers are spread out and it is one of the only detectors I have used that will separate a zinc penny from a copper penny with a number.
The numbers are single, not a block of five like many of the digital detectors I have used. The pinpoint button displays the depth when activated. The depth is not an exagerrated reading, and to be honest, when it reads four inches, it most of the time slightly deeper.

The F5 will not go ten inches deep with accurate numbers and tones. What it will do is show most all coins(I am a coin hunter) in the first 6 to 7 inches of soil very accurately. I have used this detector for about 15 hours and the battery gauge just dropped one bar.
In this short time I have found over 100 coins with 10 being wheaties and two being Indian Heads. Throw in a couple of silver charms and one civil war era cuff button.

I have just been using the stock elliptical coil and it is a very accurate pinpointer. Couple the accurate depth gauge, quick response and I can dig a very small plug or poke the coin with my probe.
I know beforehand that the coin is either shallow or out of the range of my probe. Speaking of depth, if you are looking for Explorer like depth, don't buy this detector. The deepest coin I have dug has been a clad dime at 8 inches and in my soil, this is about the limit of the F5's depth. I am more than happy with that.

All in all, it is a no hype, simple to use, and for lack of a better word, Honest type of detector.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

603

Not happy

October 24, 2010
Not happy with this detector for the main reason it will not find coins any deeper than 5-6 inch range. Yes I tried all the suggestions avaliable. But truth is it will not detect a dime at 6 inches. For 500.00 it was NOT a good buy for me. Yes I have found coins many in the 2-4 inch ranges. Tested and tested WILL NOT make a sound on a quarter at 6-7 inches air test. It is NOT user error as suggested. Read other posts same problem. Fine for some one who doesn't care about deeper older items.

Overall Rating 3 stars

4237

Fisher F5 is awesome!

March 22, 2010
I have been metal detecting since the 1970s on and off. I have had luck with the cheaper model metal detectors, but have always had to dig the cans, tabs, and nails. I finally decided to upgrade. I was wanting a detector that would tell me what I am digging, one that I could ignore the things I wanted to ignore, and be able to hunt around old houses and parks but also be able to do some beach detecting.

After a lot of research (several weeks) I decided on the Fisher F5. I am so happy. I thought that I was going to have to explain to my wife why I needed to buy a $1000 detector. The Fisher F5 has it all and at a mid-range price! I love having knobs and buttons instead of all buttons, I feel more in control of my settings. A slight learning curve, but after reading reviews, youtube videos, and some forums I was pretty much set. It is easy to ground balance yourself, discriminate, and notch out what you don't want. Even if you don't want to discriminate it still shows you what you are over. It still picks up cans, but you learn to tell what they are in the display.

Just turn it on and ground balance, set your desired discrimination and your set to hunt. You can then set the number of tone ID variations between 1 and 4 (I like 4) with the push of one button. If you are picking up frequency interference you can change frequencies with the push of one button. When you are over a target you can pinpoint it with the touch of one button.

When over a target it will tell you what it most likely is at the top bar graph and how confident it is in the middle with a two digit number that IDs the target also. Then you just pinpoint it and it tells you the depth!
I would highly recommend this detector because it has everything you need at a mid range price. AWESOME!

Overall Rating 5 stars!

725

Perfect for me

November 08, 2009
Been MDing about three years, and have had 6 different units. Understand that this is a mid range unit. I get typical 8" depth with the stock coil in discrimination, and 2-3 inched more in all metal with threshold change.

The biggest learning curve on this unit is the combination of gain and threshold in discrimination to achieve optimal performance. Understand that the gain is the sensitivity of listening for the returned signal and the threshold is the sensitivity of the metal metrics and this unit offers more options than most detectors out there. Otherwise, it's easy and light and detects just as well as any units I have used, some costing more than the F5 by $300.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

494

I ENJOY MINE!

October 05, 2009
It has audio tone ID.
You can notch out or notch in different target categories in the discriminate mode.
You can set the tone ID to 4 different "target to tone" patterns in the disc. mode.
In the all metal mode, you STILL have numerical readout of target ID, but the tones are not variable pitch with the target composition.
You get to pick the tone you like for all targets.
The tone you choose varies in loudness with the strength of the target signal.
I quickly grew out of an F2, and I am growing into the F5. Anything associated with this hobby is expensive, But I enjoy playing with this toy. Would I buy it again? You bet! Would I buy the 5" DD coil again? Ahhh- No! But, I don't want to sell it either. Is it the perfect detector? I do not know what perfect is. I do enjoy my F5 is all I can say.

Overall Rating 5 stars!

333

Fisher F5

April 11, 2009
The F5 has good depth in my area. I've use a lot of detectors over the years and this one will hang with the best of them. I'd say the same depth as the Garrett 1500 and 2500 in disc mode and every bit as deep as the Whites XLT and DFX in preset programs for that fact better then the DFX in it's preset programs. I don't think someone new to detecting will pick this detector up for awhile so take your time a learn your detector.

There is a learning curve! All the info you will need is right in front of you. In fact this detector gives you more real time info then any detector I've used and I've been at it since 1993. Depth wise I hit a quater at 8 inches and it rang out loud and clear I think it could take one at 10 inches no problem. For more info just head over to the findmall forum and search the fisher F series forum lot's of helpful folks there ! www.findmall.com

Overall Rating 4 stars

427

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