Fisher Coin Strike
Street Price $1000 - Coin, relic
Number of Reviews: 24
on 4 pages.
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I Luv mine!!
Alan-CA in CA. -
I was shocked to hear the Coin$trike was getting a bad rap here. I see basically 2 particular bad reviews in a row. I read them over several times and wish to respond.
It's clear 1 guy is a garrett nut and uses the opportunity to say buy a garrett insted. But I had garrett once and any Fisher is twice as deep and lifetime covered. The next fella from TX. goes on and on. He had a 1225 for 25 years. Theres the problem right there. He likes a more simple beep, dig 'tector with knobs and 1 tone. No open mind or patience for 4 different tones and #s. The CS. is no turn on and go detector and I actually like the pads. The knobs on my old beepers moved a lot. I have not had the CS. long but the more I use it the more I luv it. I fancy trying new gagets and thought the learning process was fun. If you don't want to take the time, get the 1236x instead. I hunt old parks with Cs. and get amazed. I dug a 1919 wheat back under a hunk of iron last week.
I own a DFX, EXP-2, Cortez, and 3D collecting dust. I keep grabbing the CS. and luv it!
BEEP BEEP!
Alan-CA
Oct 10, 2005
20 people found this review helpful.
Disregard bad reviews. Fishers best!
Hondo in Baltimore -first off the poor reviews i see reading back are jest laughable. *wont find coin on top of ground* ? Gimme a break, an then turn your darn notches off! this is one serious unit.new technology, new engineering an not your old fisher. read the manual! it's not hard but different and it takes 30+ hours in the field to really learn! notice the bad reviews is from diggers who say, *try for a few hours, did air-test* and such. forget airtests! this fisher likes a ground matrix & it goes DEEP. i knows civil war guys who use the all metel mode to find deep bullets in beat sites. but the coin strike really shines for bad soils and in trash. its the best kept secret for bad ground. i love the numbers. iron is always (-) i never dig no more iron. it hits hard on coins +20 to +35. loaded with features like tracking.this is one cool fisher that can out hunt the heavy explorer. any one who gave it a bad review or sold it made a mistake. Its no sooped up CZ. U need to learn what settings work best pre-set is no good.ill put mine up against any detector out there especially in trash. theres a forum and home page online about coins strike that can relly help too. i seen used ones sellin for $450-500. street price of $1000 is way off. $450 is a damn STEAL! i might buy 2
Oct 06, 2005
13 people found this review helpful.
Fisher Coinstrike
Bugar in In. -Have over 2 yr of Coinstrike, much easier to learn than a Minelab, I like it fine, have hunted Fl. beaches, rocky mts, Tn. relics, coins in In. it just works GOOD, it is my favorite detector,with no problems or complaints,does most all things well, no machine is perfect. have had 27 thru the 30 yr, if i don't like one=>down the road, well iv'e had Coinstrike over 2 yr, figure that out
Oct 06, 2005
4 people found this review helpful.
A costly experience
David Herbert in Alice, Texas -
My comments on Fisher's CoinStrike.
I have been an owner of Fisher metal detectors since 1980. My first was a Fisher 555D, from then I owned a 1225X and now my newest and latest, a CoinStrike. That's over 24 years of ownership of what I thought was the best of the best. I still own the 1225X.
I recently had the bad experience of owning a CoinStrike for about 30 days. It was tested in my test beds and in both extremely trashy and clean sites. Each "outing" with the CoinStrike was followed up with a complete search with the 1225X to verify the CoinStrike's ability to find and detect coins and artifacts.
After extensive testing, I have concluded that the CoinStrike is a very cumbersome and difficult detector to use. Programming is very simple but use of the unit is so difficult that each hunt requires at least four times the effort that earlier Fisher detectors required in actually detecting, pinpointing and finding targets.
The complaints I have with the CoinStrike are:
The idea of the tactile menu pad is absolutely horrible. In many cases it takes repeated presses of the buttons to make them work. When they do, the delay from the activated "press" to something happening on the screen is so long that is unacceptable. In many cases, the delay is so slow that you have pressed the button again thinking that the last push did not work also, only to advance through the menu item you wanted to adjust.
The replacement of knobs in lieu of menu items does not work very well. To make any adjustment, whether a sensitivity or discrimination adjustment, takes about 100 times longer because you have stop searching to advance though the menu each time any adjustment is to be made. Due to the complaint in item #1 above, the simple act of making an adjustment while detecting is impossible. You have to stop what you are doing and fiddle with the menu pad where with a simple knob the adjustment would be made "on the fly" without the need to stop everything you were doing and go though the "gut wrenching" act of running through the menu while pressing tactile switches that may-or may not work on the first, second or third push.
Ground balance is a big?. There is no way to actually check to see it your ground balance is set correctly. You have to assume that the machine did it correctly when you performed the ground balance procedure. The procedure of "bobbing" the coil up and down to check ground balance does not work because you can only assume the correct balance is obtained if the coil does not cause a response as it nears the ground.
When detecting, the sound is so delayed from the time the center of the coil passes over the target until you hear it, that zeroing in on a target takes at least 10 times as long as with the old 1225X. While the 1225X has an instant tone as it passes over a target, the CoinStrike does not. It has enough delay to drive you crazy. Consequently, the act of actually zeroing in on any target, whether it be good or trash, takes a very long time in comparison with your other models. That means a lot longer time to cover the same amount of area with the other Fisher detectors.
It is impossible to tell if the Averaging mode is even working. No matter how many various tests of the averaging system are made, no difference is to be seen between A1 and A0. Even worse, the factory instructions cite that the system will be in A or A1. Not, A0!
Strange things happen at the most inopportune times. For example, the other day I was using the pinpoint feature to zero in on a target and the whole thing locked up. The readout read 51 and none of the menu functions would work at all. I had to turn the unit off and then back on to clear the malfunction. This is the second time that this malfunction has happened since I received the unit 30 days ago. This is not acceptable.
Another malfunction that happened on two occasions was that the sound did not work. The first time it happened I turned the unit off and then back on and the sound worked. The second time I had to switch over to my auxiliary unit because I could not get the sound to operate. After I got home I tried it again and the sound worked once again.
False hits are the most serious defect of the unit. No matter where the settings for sensitivity or threshold are set, you receive many, many false signals. The problem is so serious that your "trust" in the unit was seriously compromised and you spend a much greater time in confirming the target than you normally would. Consequently, a great deal of good hunting time was expended in trying to determine if you had a "diggable" target or a piece of trash. The CS had a really bad habit of triggering off metal (other than aluminum) bottle caps. While other machines including the 3D and my trusty old 1225X had no problem with them, the find them every time regardless of notch settings. Aluminum "twist caps" triggered just about all metal detectors of any brand.
The notching feature is a total waste of time. Nickel and zinc could be notched out but foil and tabs did not seem to eliminate anything. The machine was totally useless against a whole range of pull-tabs and to perform a search without digging everything up you had to notch out all the notch categories.
The all-metal mode is almost useless. As of this date, it has been impossible to ground balance the unit so that you could even use it. You always have a sound and only when the sound gets louder do you know that you are over some type of ferrous material. To make matters even worse, there is no sharp sound alerting you to the end of the materials or the beginning, only a very broad and extremely "mushy" tonal increase or decrease to signal actual passage in a very few cases. Other than that, you always have the signal that makes you believe that your auto ground balance is not working at all. For all practical purposes, it is useless in searching for targets. Another problem with the all metal mode is when you do seek a spot to auto ground balance, since it produces some type of tone almost constantly as the coil is placed upon the ground, how do you know you are on "clean" soil even if the readout is 00? Answer, you don't!
A major problem is in identifying coins lying on top of the ground or just beneath. If the coil is held at least 8 inches above the ground, when slowly sweeping over a coin, no problems exist. Lower the coil to the ground or less than 8 inches and slowly move in an "X" over the coin and it may, or may not, sound with each pass of the coil over the target. Not good! This has been replicated over and over again in actual hunts and on the test bed. Yes, I have tried it after ground balancing numerous times.
Coils. Fisher did not think far enough ahead to design a 5" coil for the CoinStrike. None is available. Consequently, hunting in severe trash will range from impossible to a horrible experience in trying to determine just what you are looking at.
In summary, I am highly disgusted with this unit. From being very slow in response to target identity to erratic and unstable operation. The absolute worst thing about the unit is the extremely cumbersome methods you have to take to change any settings! You have to step through the menu each time!
After a month of ownership I traded my CoinStrike in for a CZ-3D and am absolutely delighted with the 3D. Now, once again, I have immediate and complete control over the machine and accuracy and efficiency of the hunt is beyond my wildest belief.
A message to Fisher: Get away from touch pads and go back to KNOBS!
Aug 12, 2005
39 people found this review helpful.
Coinstrike not for me.
Rod in Canada -
I had heard good things about them and needed a backup machine so traded my 1500 for a like new Coinstrike. I spent about 3 months with it ( an hour here and there)and although probably due to operator inexperience I had a hard time with it.
Its definately a machine that will take a long time to learn, the airtests were very poor, (not where it counts ) but still nice to see. I got the machine for trashy ghost town like sites and liked the + and - ferrous numbers, unfortunately dug lots of iron that stayed positive from all around it. Our soil is very mineralized and I'm sure this was one of the problems. Definately a love /hate detector. Traded for a Tejon and glad I did. For those wanting a digital readout, pinpointing, imaging etc. would suggest a Garrett 1500 or 2500 or an Explorer 11. HH
May 17, 2005
5 people found this review helpful.
Fisher C$
Dogman in California -Well i have owned the C$ for about 3 months now, I have put in at least 80 hours using it durring that time. I hunt with it almost every day.
Pros, Works great on DRY land Has decent depth in non mineralized areas and you definutly know when you have a solid target. Pinpointing is a snap once you learn it
Cons
If you have highly mineralized soil arround dont even bother buying this. You are forced to use the lowest settings in these conditions, 1-2 sense threshold -40 to -60. At most you are getting 3-4 in depth when you are forced to use these settings.
Try hunting a beach with moderate black sand and it will drive you nuts. It just doesn't like medium/moderat black sand beach.
My opinion is this. If your hunting mainly dry land and you do not have much mineralization go ahead and buy it. If not avoid it like the plague. Because unless you have a really clean (not mineralized) beach. You are pretty much wasting your time on them.
Mainly because 99% of the goodstuf is deeper then 3-4 inch and the C$ just can not reach the deph needed to get these targets.
Hope this has helped you out in making your choice. In short if i knew back before i purchesed the C$ what i know now i would not have baught it.
Mar 20, 2005
10 people found this review helpful.
Cherry Picking king
T Allen in Phoenix AZ -The Coin Strike is a detector that you have to read and understand the manual, plus spend some time on the forums to use it to its full potential. The SENS and THRESH on the coin strike work different than on other detectors. Once you learn how to use it, you will be amazed at the coins and jewerly that you will find under nails and trash.
I have used all major brands of detectors and none of them can beat the coin strike in areas with alot of debris. You can lay nails on top of coins and rings, and the coin strike will act like the nails are not even there. The fact of the matter is, if you want to find keepers you have to look in areas where people once gathered, and people leave alot more trash than coins and jewerly. The coin strike is the hands down king of the cherry pickers.
Jan 29, 2005
8 people found this review helpful.