Does The Minelab Equinox Really Work on The Beach? Yes! The Minelab Equinox is a game changer! Whether its the Equinox 600 or 800, both models will do extremely well on wet and dry sand. The Equinox is lightweight and waterproof. The Equinox is simple to operate and Minelab made the Equinox work exceptionally well on salt water beaches. The Multi-IQ technology really shines for for this occasion. Minelab got it right!
Now lets get into more details about metal detecting on the beach and unpack why the Equinox does so well on both wet and dry salt water beaches.
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The Equinox Compared to Other Machines.
For someone who spent the better part of 10 years trying different metal detectors at the beach, none of them worked as well as the Equinox. Not even close!
In fact, here are the machines I’ve tried and some details about each machine and my personal experience.
Note: Please keep in mind that I am at heart a relic hunter and I only get to the beach once or twice a year which explains why I tried the following machines on the beach. They are what I had in my possession at the time. I really couldn’t justify buying a separate machine to hunt the beaches one or two times a year so I tried to get the most out of the machine I had at the time.
Here are the machines I tried in the past to include the Equinox 800:
- Garrett AT Pro: The AT Pro works well on dry sand but as soon as you got close to the wet sand or dip the coil in the surf, the machine becomes very unstable and significant depth will be lost. I found that removing the coil cover helped a bit but the machine really has a hard time once you ventured into the wet salty sand.
- Whites TDI: This machine is a pulse induction machine that did very well but it isn’t waterproof so I was always worrying about the water getting in the box. I spend more time worrying about the water than I did hunting with the TDI. However, the TDI found a lot of targets with incredible depth but they were very hard to discriminate against. The TDI loves to find bobby-pins and together we found a pile of them. I ended up selling this machine to help pay for a Minelab GPX that I use for civil war relic hunting now.
- XP Deus: This is the machine I use the most relic hunting so I obviously tried to make this machine work at the beach. It does better than the AT Pro but to understand how to operate the machine in Gold Field mode was a challenge. On the dry sand, the Deus would do as well as any other machine. On wet sand it became unstable but if you messed around with the settings enough you can settle it down. However, it took a lot of ground balancing and tweaking to make it work on wet sand at the expense of significant loss of depth. The Deus is not the optimal machine for wet sand.
- Minelab Equinox 800: If you are looking for a well rounded machine that is waterproof, simple to use, works well on land, and on the beach look no further. Believe what you hear. The Equinox surpassed all of my exceptions and then some. It was simple to use and I found more rings and other items in 4 days of hunting than I did in 10 years of hunting the beaches at Hilton Head and I’m not kidding. The Equinox loves gold! I’ll go into more detail below.
Everything Changed When I Used The Equinox.
For a VLF metal detector that costs under $1000, the Minelab Equinox is the real deal. Like I mentioned earlier, I have tried a few machines on the beach that fit my type of hunting at the time and none of them gave me the confidence on the beach like I have now with the Equinox.
With all the other machines I used, I spent more time second guessing my settings than enjoying the hunt. The Equinox is so simple to set up that I was on the beach swinging within 3 minutes of stepping on the sand with no second thoughts. The presets in Beach 1 and Beach 2 work so well that I wondered if the machine was working because it was so quiet!
The Equinox is Extremely Simple to Setup and Use on The Beach.
If you have never used a Minelab Equinox on the beach have no fear. This machine was so simple to set up it that anyone could use it. The Equinox comes with 2 beach programs Beach 1 and Beach 2. Both programs work just fine but I ended up preferring Beach 2 over Beach 1. The instruction manual defines Beach 1 and 2 as the following:
Beach 1: Wet and dry sand.
Beach 2: Underwater, and surf
I did so well using Beach 2 that I didn’t see any reason to switch over to any other program. Plus, I was hugging the surf line and I was in and out of the surf a lot. However, I did try Beach 1 for a while and it worked just fine.
Optimal Equinox Beach Settings.
Aside from using Beach 2 as my search program there were only 2 other settings I changed from the default settings. To be truthfully honest, all of the default settings in Beach 1 and Beach 2 will work just fine. I only made the following 2 adjustments while using Beach 2 as my search program:
- The Tones default is 5 but I changed my settings to 50 tones. I found 50 tones to be more appealing and you can hear those bottle caps! You are going to want to hear the bottle caps trust me. I dug every signal no matter what I thought it was.
- The Recovery Speed default is 5 or 6 but I dropped mine down to 3. I found that dropping down to 3 didn’t impact the signals I was hearing. The targets at Hilton Head are spread out and the beaches aren’t polluted with trash so there is no need for a fast recovery speed. Plus, lowering your recovery speed will increase your ability to hear some of those deeper targets. You will gain some additional depth using a lower recovery speed.
What Did The Equinox Find in 2020?
July 2020 Hilton Head Island. I’ve been coming to Hilton Head for the past 10 years with little show for it as far as metal detecting goes. I’ve hunted all the public beaches and only found 3 (2 gold) rings in the span of those 10 years. The very first day of metal detecting with the Minelab Equinox 800 I found 3 rings. One of those was 14k gold. I also found a silver ear ring, over $3 in clad, several pull tabs, bottle caps etc. Here is a breakdown of everything I found from 4 days and nights of hunting one beach location at Hilton Head. I dug almost every signal even when I knew it was a bottle cap!
| Sunglasses | 5 pairs (1 pair of Oakley’s Coldfuse undamaged worth $200) |
| Coins | $4.04 total |
| Pull Tabs | Too many to count. |
| Fishing Weights | 9 Various sizes |
| Knives/Tools | 1 pair of Calcutta needle nose pliers ($30), 1 box cutter knife |
| Lighter | 1 |
| Matchbox Cars | 1 |
| Rings/Jewelry | 6 rings (2 gold, 1 silver, 3 junkers) 2 pieces of junk jewelry, 1 bracelet, 1 silver (925) ball ear ring. |
| Hair pins | 2 |
| Tent spikes | 1 |
| Fishing line/hooks | 3 |
| Memory Cards/Readers | 1 USB Reader Stick. |
Now, some might say that I just got lucky. Sure, I would agree but at the depth I found some of the rings and other items, I would not have heard them with my Garrett AT Pro or XP Deus. Those targets were at least 10 inches deep and it took several sand scoops and a lot of effort to find some of those items.
I’m well aware of the performance of my other metal detectors to know that depth does play a significant factor at the beach. Both the Garrett AT Pro and XP Deus lack the ability to detect deeper targets especially in wet salty sand. The Equinox clearly had no problem punching deep into the sand. It is an amazing machine.
Would I Recommend The Equinox For Metal Detecting on The Beach?
Absolutely, as I’ve said many times already the Equinox works extremely well on the beach and I would highly recommend it to anyone considering a new machine that is 100% waterproof and works well on both land and in fresh and salt water. I had a lot of success at the beach in 2020 and I give credit where credit is due. The Minelab Equinox was a game changer for me. It will be my go to beach machine in the future.
Are You Ready For an Equinox 600 or 800?
If you are then you’re in luck. Fort Bedford Metal Detectors carries both the 600 and 800 along with waterproof headphones and all the accessories you need. Fort Bedford is my vendor of choice and that’s where my Equinox 800 came from. Give Keith Leppert a call at 814-215-1732 or visit his website If you are looking at other machines, coils, accessories etc., Fort Bedford is the place to go. Check them out or Give Keith a call but tell him Scott from Mental Metal Detecting sent you!
Some Fun Facts and Tips About Beach Metal Detecting
- Beach hunting is not as easy as it looks. Its hard and sometimes a lonely place a night but very peaceful especially on quiet private beaches.
- Study the places where people pack in the most, take a mental note and hit those areas hard during low tides.
- Take a mental note of where the water levels reach during high tide, this is what we call the towel line. Hit those areas hard. You might be surprised how much you find along the towel line.
- Purchase a good sand scoop and pay a little more for a good one. The cheaper scoops will not last very long. If you plan on hunting beaches a lot you might as well pay a little more for a good one. I have several I recommend in my Amazon Store.
- Depending on the beach you may not hear a lot of targets at first but when you do, hunker down and work those areas well.
- Take advantage of a good storm coming through. Higher surfs can expose deeper layers of sand and expose more targets. Look for areas where the sand has been cut by the storm and work those areas hard.
- When metal detecting the beach during the day, expect to have many onlookers invading your space. Have a little patients with them, most of them are fascinated by what you are finding. Try not to show them your good stuff or they may claim its theirs. After you show them a few bottle caps and pull tabs they will probably wonder why you do what you do and go away.
- If you encounter some curious kids, take your time with them and explain what you are doing. Remember, you were a kid once and you must might set up a kids interest in metal detecting for the rest of their life. It happened to me.
- Public beaches at night can be a little #SKETCHY. Try to keep your back to the water to avoid any sudden surprise on lookers. I would also carry pepper spray. The planet is in a weird place these days.
- Finally, when you are done rinse everything off with clean fresh water. Your equipment will thank you in the long run and don’t forget to lube up those O-rings twice a year with silicone grease.
The Minelab Equinox is The Real Deal!
I hope you found the information about the Minelab Equinox useful. I am no expert of this machine as of the writing of this article but I am well on my way to figuring it out. Does The Minelab Equinox Really Work on The Beach? I hope I was able to answer that question.
I’ll be the first one to admit that I didn’t want to believe that this machine was that good on the beach but it is. The Minelab Equinox is the real deal! If you are thinking about getting a new beach metal detector I would highly recommend considering the Minelab Equinox. Its a great machine for the right price.
Thanks for your time. Good luck and happy hunting!
-Scott (Mental Metal Detecting)
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