Minelab Excalibur 1000
Street Price $1000 - Beach, water
Number of Reviews: 51
on 6 pages.
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Also in this price range:
Minelab Excalibur 1000
Fisher CZ 20
Garrett Infinium LS
Excalibur 800 & 1000 are fine for diving.
Sandman in USA -
Excal 800 an 1000 work well diving or wading a beach. I hip mount it for wading. Diving it has been stable for me and all the different tones help give target Identification and it is accurate. It is also very deep and I prefer it over any PI I have tried as they have little discrimination.
May 07, 2006
16 Yes
1 No
Poor performance while diving
alberto@tiscali.nl in Netherlands -
I bought a excalibur 1000 last august 2005.
On land it is a super detector, but while scuba-diving
the sound run off and you can do nothing about it.
For two times I have sent it back to Ireland,
and asked for repair, but I get it back with the same problem.
You only can search in the Pin-point mode while diving,
so you will find tons of iron trash.
If I had known before I would have bought a fisher or a tigershark...
Mar 24, 2006
19 Yes
1 No
beach sweep
beach sweep in redbank usa -i love my excal it finds me a lot of gold i have a wot coil on it and this thing goes deeep. "tip #1" get out of auto sens i run mine at 10 o clock and i run my disc at 1. "tip #2" get a big beach scoop and be prepared to dig deep for all that gold at the beach. good luck keep m swinging.
Feb 16, 2006
14 Yes
1 No
dont know what all the hype is about this detector!
Peter in Long Island, NY -
I've used the excal 1000 on the beach and scuba diving all over the world. the headphones are flimsy and fall off your head way too easily when used for scuba. i've heard that using a homemade strap around your chin to the phones may help. I also find this machine to be kind of noisy & unstable. the tones are mainly indescernable and whispy. I prefer to use my beachunter ID, which is more simple and has distinct seperate tones.
Feb 03, 2006
12 Yes
2 No
Great Beach Detector
Wayne in Florida -I live close to the beach in Florida (East Coast) and have been detecting on and off for 10 years.I have owned several Garretts and since I only do beach hunting I was dissapointed with the Garretts false signals in the wet sand or shallow wading.I took the $$ plunge and invested in the Minelab Excalibur 1000 and WOW what a difference!!I have found SO many rings,coins and other jewelry with the Excalibur that I could never have found with the Garrett Detectors.The Excalibur made me feel like,, what was I doing with those other "toy" detectors.I highly recommend the balanced shaft to displace the weight of the Excalibur.I'm NOT saying that Garrett or other brand of detectors are junk but if you are a serious beach hunter you cant go wrong with the Excalibur.
Aug 11, 2005
74 Yes
5 No
Excalibur 800/1000
Steven Goodman in Virginia -Probably the best surf detector available. The 800 has an 8 inch coil and the 1000 has a 10 inch coil and reads 20% deeper. No matter what- "Go with the 10 inch coil!" The coils are hard wired and the units are not designed for interchanging coils unless you send it to Minelab.
The standard shaft supplied with this unit is poorly designed by mounting the head unit below the grip and above the shaft. It is recommended that you get the upgraded "Balanced Shaft" with the "Lightweight Aluminum Guard" that protects the knobs. This mounts the head unit under your forearm making it much lighter and easier to swing. The extra cost is about $130. I would seriously recommend this shaft and getting a "hip mount kit" to anyone who plans on using this in the surf or lakes.
Those who complain about the weight of this unit are probably using the factory shaft. Your gripes are understandable but if weight is an issue for you, consider that a 6 x 12 sand scoop full of wet sand almost weighs 20 lbs and the waves usually break right where the good finds are. Surf hunters must be able to take a beating from the waves, at times, and develop the ability to pinpoint and scoop their target blindfolded while standing in one spot of turbulent water.
Sound like fun doesn't it? It is!
Aug 04, 2005
30 Yes
3 No
At First I Hated It! Now I love It!
Minelab Owner in Michigan, USA -The Minelab Excalibur 1000 is not for everyone. This machine is for the serious treasure seeker only.
When I first got my machine about 3 months ago, I was amazed at how easy it seemed to work. Then as the ground thawed and I started to hunt I soon became dissatisfied. It seemed to have poor depth and very unstable. The tone would bounce all over the place and I dug as many as 10 holes to 1 real target. I got to the place where I wanted my money back! I thought it was a piece of junk!
A friend who also owned the Excalibur convinced me to calm down and begin to learn the machine. I took his advice and made a "coin garden" and began studying how the detector responded to different targets. I then went into the field with the attitude to learn and not gripe.
Today after about 60 hours of practice I love the Minelab Excalibur 1000! It's a great land hunting machine, the best I've ever owned. And I've owned the best of other brands.
The secret to using any Minelab detector is to learn the machine. It does give a distinct tone for coins, jewelry, and artifacts. In fact, for the price, it's probably the best Civil War relic machine in the world. It's also a killer in high trash areas.
Now I just need to see how well it does at the beach.
Thank you Minelab!
May 24, 2005
25 Yes
2 No
Excalibur 800 & 1000
Darrell P. in Honolulu, HI -I bought my fist Excalibur 800 in 1996. I liked it so much that I got the 1000 a couple of years later. In 2001 I got my third Excalibur again the 800. The 1000 I found to heavy even in the water. The 800 is much easier to mover through the water with and much easier on the arm out of the water. I thought the 1000 would go deeper but that was not my experience. Service with Minelab has actually gotten cheaper (Out of warranty service.) My wife was using the Whites PI but now has adopted my first 800. The 1000 is back up if I have to send a unit in for service.
I prefer to search in the all metal mode and use the discriminate to use the Iron-Mask feature. My discriminate level is 0 otherwise. I prefer to dig everything. I've found that if you don't register nickels then you can't find platinum and that a diamond ring is seen as a pull tab.
I usually use auto sensitivity or lower it if I get a lot of interference. I prefer to tune my unit by first selecting discriminate and have a very slite sound and then turn it to all metal. The discriminate setting under good conditions has a very smooth threshold but if close to a radio station or if the Navy decides to play with their electronics it can get so erratic that all metal is your only choice. Even under these conditions you can use discriminate to check if the target is iron.
I've had a lot of detectors but I prefer the 800 over the rest.
Apr 14, 2005
34 Yes
0 No
Excalibur 1000
Gary Bear in Southern Cal. -I have owned mine for aabout 6 months now. Took some getting used to as I had a viewer on my previous machine. It takes some getting use to. The threshold does bounce between quiet and loud but I that is just the machine resetting the automatic threshold.
At first I thought I was not using it right. No major finds when others were finding stuff. I started checking their finds (while in ground) and sure enough, I heard each of them. Conclusion, if I move over it, I will hear it.
Only complaint, the knobs loosen.
Feb 15, 2005
8 Yes
0 No
Excalibur 1000
lee ivester in Mooresville, NC, USA -
I have problems with this detector maintaining a constant threshold tone. It continually changes from high background tone to low and in between. Although it hunts well on the beach it was a disappointment when hunting relics in nothern VA. Could not detect a Minie ball only a couple of inches in the ground. I returned the machine to Minelab and although they said they found nothing wrong with it they replaced the circuit board just to make me feel better about it (they are very nice people to deal with). I'm still not comfortable with it for relic hunting and will probably reserve it for the beach, relying on my Nautilus DMCII and Fisher 1266 for Civil War relic hunting. Would appreciate hearing from others on this machine.
Jan 10, 2005
12 Yes
2 No