Garrett Scorpion Gold Stinger

Excellent entry level Gold Machine

Jose in Philly -
First of all, I own a few machines. Whites Pi Surfmaster dual field, the Garrett ace 250 was my starter machine and, one of my favorites for its simplicity, it's always with me, Whites V3i,
Tesoro Stingray, White's MXT. Minelab Excal II and a few coils. Well, actually more than a few coils. But you get the picture.

I purchased the Garret Gold Stinger Used on Craigslist for a very good price. The condition of the machine was like it was never used at all. Plus I got it with two coils. I think the only two coils available for it.

At first I was confused with the operators manual and had a hard time with this machine...If you are used to fully automatic machines, as I was, then you may not like the Gold Stinger at first.

I tried it, did some bench testing with it, used a few times and I just got so frustrated with it that I put it away and went back to the auto simple to use machines. Now after having spent some time with it, I just love this machine.

If you study this machine and do some real comparisons with other full auto machines the Gold Stinger is a lot of machine for the price
when compared to other machines in it's price range. At first I did not think it could detect small gold as good as the other machines I was using. But I was wrong. It is a very capable machine and I was to blame for not fully understanding how to set it up for the type of searching that I wanted to do. As other reviewers have commented on here... It's like three machines in one...and the lowest priced entry level gold prospecting machine still available today.

Sure, its not the latest and the greatest, but in my opinion for the price, you are getting an excellent machine. I wish Garret would make this machine in a submersible model.

I recommend you watch the Youtube videos on the Scorpion, Do some bench testing, do some actual ground testing, play with it until you understand the controls and what settings are going to work for the type of searching you are doing.

There is also a video that compares this machine's sensitivity to small gold..against the ace 250 and one of the new Garret AT machines.

I hope this helps some of you decide if you are thinking of buying The Garret Gold Scorpion.

Dec 31, 2011

24 Yes
1 No

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All Types of Hunting!

Mojave Green in Helendale, Ca -
This is my favorite detector for all types of hunting. It does it all, coin, gold and cache (with larger coil). I always liked the VLF/TR detectors of the 80's but I wanted the motion mode also. This baby has it! A dream machine that is 3 detectors in one. Full all metal mode, all metal trash out and motion trash out. In a small unit. If you want to look at a meter I guess your out of luck here. My ears work just fine.

Thanks Charles for your best one yet!

Nov 23, 2011

2 Yes
2 No

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Finding gold

Gold hunter in so califorina -
Well just got my gold stinger about two weeks ago and went gold hunting with it like they all say study manual and your MD before you go out looking for gold. Having success finding the ore line in the water and tested it on different size gold just to hear the tone better you must use headphones and do watch the video on You tube to understand it better, it helps a lot but yes, it does take at least 100hr of learning your scorpion gold stinger but it's not for the beginners but your not going to find anything smaller then 1 gram and that is at 2in deep.
I tested it on a 3 gram nugget and it picked right up at 4in but like I said use headphone and the depth turned all the way up past nine on your MD with disc.. Turn to zero, but its now all up to you to understand it on your own and it my be different in the area you may dig.

Oct 18, 2011

10 Yes
3 No

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President

Yankee Gold Prospecting in New England -
I have been very disappointed in the Scorpion. Living in New England, we have tons of hot rocks in the creek beds. I bought this unit because it claimed to find gold nuggets.

Since it is recommended to run the unit in all metals mode, you get hits in nearly every pass. (hot rocks). Then turn it to precious metals and you get nothing. Just a waist of time. Slows you down as you have to re ground balance it constantly. I have found all kinds of junk on the beaches from gum wrappers to bobby pins.

This unit would be fine as a beach machine or perhaps around parks and cellar holes but not on the creeks.
I'm sure it does find gold if it is in the gram plus size. In New England, gram nuggets are very rare. Most of the placer gold is fine flakes and half gram nuggets are the biggest normally found.

The bottom line for finding gold flakes or small nuggets is in the Kilohertz Frequency. The stinger is only 15 kz. I have been told you need 25 plus kz to find small gold nuggets. So for the price,(a couple hundred bucks more), the Gold Bug 2 seems to be the best unit for the money. STRICTLY ON FINDING GOLD.

Happy Hunting.

Oct 10, 2011

13 Yes
3 No

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scorpion

old timer in fl. -
You guys that cant use this detector are the reason garrett stoped building the xlt 500 vlf-tr water machine(best machine ever built) but to make money they had to build a turn on and go machine for the inexperienced, the scorpion ground balances like the vlf-tr(I know most have never heard of this machine)some of the old timers will.

I wish garrett would make the scorpion in a waterproof machine, hopefully they have done this with the AT Pro, and also simple enough for the ones that cant do any adjusting to there machine

Sorry about the spelling, but I do know how to adjust my machine. Thanks.

Nov 08, 2010

30 Yes
31 No

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Great machine

Bruce in utah -
Love reading how people can't use it and read plain English. It simple to use. Haven't been out gold detecting yet but been to schools, parks. find rings, money, and trash. It is going out this weekend to a school yard.
I have the lobo from terso another good detector, but if you can't read English don't know how to use the scorpion don't buy it. Leave it to someone that can use it.

Oct 15, 2010

11 Yes
29 No

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Great little detector....confusing manual

Dave in Vancouver B.C -
Bought the gold stinger to nugget shoot, haven't done that yet...had it for a month. Many hours spent coin hunting, found many! I realize this is a specialty detector and its great for the money, my only beef is the confusing, poorly written instruction manual. Most of what I learned is from hours of trial and error:
for instance if I'm coin hunting in motion disc can I operate in "manual"? If so what is the added benefit? Also, The "auto/manual" switch doesn't make a difference in motion disc....and can I use "auto" tuning in all metal mode? If not then this switch{auto/manual} is pointless...if I'm nugget hunting and I'm in all metal mode does "auto" work?? If so, is it reliable enough and what is "auto "about it? Does it automatically ground balance?? Who knows. A great little machine! Penetrates fairly deeply finds coins, albeit a specialty detector but that manual HAS to be rewritten!!

Sep 26, 2010

26 Yes
5 No

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No luck with ground balancing mine.

Chris in Southern Calif. -
I bought one 2 weeks ago. As soon as I turn it on it humms and wont stop no matter what knob I turn and no matter how many times I push the reset button. I've spun those 10 turn knobs till the cows come home and no change. I get 5 beeps telling me that the batteries are good so the problem is not low batteries. Going to take it back and have the dealer I bought it from go over it with me. Hopefully I'm stupid and the machine is ok.

Jun 23, 2010

20 Yes
17 No

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Gold/Coin hunter

willy in blackfoot ID -
My wife bought me a scorpion because I prospect for gold. However, I have used it to find coins and relics. I did practice with different targets to get a good idea of what the sounds were telling me. it does take awhile to tune the ground balance while looking for gold.
Plan to dig up a lot of trash when looking for coins. Not for the beginner.

Mar 07, 2010

31 Yes
3 No

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Great lil' Detector

Bugar in Indiana USA -
Bought one, put in my reccomended 100 hrs learning it, liked it so well, bought another, got 2, they work fine (NO DETECTOR WORKS FINE IF YOU DON'T LEARN HOW TO OPERATE IT PROPERLY), It works great does what it was designed to do very well, light, easy to use, takes bout 2 1/2 min to change the batteries every 30 hrs or so, theyr'e OK detectors*****, five =count em

Jul 09, 2009

42 Yes
9 No

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