Best Metal Detectors for Relic Hunting
Relic hunting — searching for old artifacts at historic sites — demands more from a detector than casual coin shooting. Targets are deeper, often masked by iron debris, and may be non-coin shapes that produce weaker signals. The features that matter shift accordingly.
Key Features for Relic Hunting
- Depth: Old artifacts are deep. Every inch of additional depth matters at relic sites. Higher-end detectors achieve this through better amplification, noise filtering, and coil design.
- Iron handling: Relic sites are loaded with iron nails, horseshoes, and scrap. A good relic detector provides audio information that lets you hear good targets among iron rather than simply blocking all iron signals.
- Adjustable settings: Ground balance, sensitivity, discrimination, and audio tone adjustments let you optimize for specific site conditions.
- Multi-frequency or selectable frequency: Different frequencies respond differently to different target types. Having options helps. See understanding frequencies.
Coils
The search coil has a major impact on performance. Larger coils cover more ground and see deeper but are heavier and less precise in trashy areas. Smaller coils (elliptical or round 6"-8") excel at separating targets in iron-dense ground. Many relic hunters carry two coils and switch based on conditions.
Price Range
Serious relic machines typically start around $500 and go up to $2,000+. The mid-range ($700-$1,200) offers excellent performance for most relic hunting situations. Spending more gets incremental improvements in depth and target separation, which matter at heavily hunted sites but may not be noticeable at fresh sites.