Bounty Hunter Land Ranger Metal Detector
A Deeper Look At The Bounty Hunter Land Ranger (LR)
The Bounty Hunter Land Ranger was extremely easy to assembly as it arivred in a mere three pieces. The Land Ranger manual provided contains basic information needed to begin detecting but was short on details regarding how each of the functions works.
The Land Ranger may not be the best choice if you want a detector that you assemble and use immediately. The Bounty Hunter QuickDraw II or Bounty Hunter Tracker IV might better meet your needs if immediate easy of use is important to you. Either of these will serve as an ideal back-up unit or a spare to loan someone going detecting with you once you are ready to purchase the Land Ranger.
Although I had been detecting for sometime, I found the first trip with the Land Ranger frustrating due to it's high sensitivity, coupled with extra features. There was an overabundance of tones generated in response to mineralized ground conditions, trashy areas (with pulltabs, screwcaps, etc.) and "falsing" (this results primarily from incorrect sensitivity settings and improper ground balancing).
Now that I am more familiar with the Land Ranger settings I can easily determine which tones to ignore and which ones might indicate a worthwhile digging target. Your initial feeling of information overload will pass (though it takes time) but soon you will develop an appreciation for the degree of sensitivity of this detector.
Once you learn the correct settings, start locating more targets (valuable items) and your detector will become an extension of yourself.
Advanced Technology of the Land Ranger
The advanced technology of the microprocessor features convinced me to purchase the Bounty Hunter Land Ranger. These features include: Target ID, VDI (numeric) readout signifying target conductivity, 3 tone ID, automatic and manual ground balancing, programmable target accept/reject, no motion/pinpoint mode, self-tuning (motion), all metals mode (good for deep hunting of relics, caches and/or gold nugget shooting)... As well as... the Bounty Hunter detectors' excellent reputation... but PRIMARILY for the exceptionally economical price for a multi-featured and professional metal detector.
The ability of this detector to make distinctions to reject trash items and yet alert me to coins and jewelry with sharp, clear tones make it a joy to use this unit. In the near future I hope to do more relic hunting and nugget (gold) shooting) and the Land Ranger is perfect for this. I have purchased a 10" coil for approximately $60 and it is a definite plus that the Land Ranger comes with both an 8" standard and a 4" nugget coil. This was another extremely important part of my choosing the Bounty Hunter over other brands whose additional coils are extremely high and it is important to have several sizes to accommodate multiple types of hunting.
This detector is also lightweight and this is an important consideration. Deeply buried items are often missed with less sophisticated detectors than this one. For the most part, the LR will detect a coin-sized target around 10-12" deep (exactly how deep is determined by object size, metal type, soil conditions, etc. however, 10-12" is well beyond the depth you will routinely want to dig as targets are most often at a 4-6" depth due to coins, jewelry, etc. tendency to settle into the soil, this, of course, varies but the bulk of objects found are in this depth range.)
My main point of contention with the Land Rover is not with the unit itself, but rather with the manual which describes only the broadest terms such features as the ground monitor meter and self-tuning all metals mode. I believe that Land Ranger should be waterproof or at the very least water-resistant. Since this is not the case, I would strongly recommend that it not be used in the rain without a quality plastic cover fitted securely around the control housing.
Conclusion About The Land Ranger:
For an experienced detectorist I give this unit a high recommendation... also I highly recommend it for a novice willing to invest the amount of time and patience needed to master the subtleties of this full-featured detector. The Land Rover features include Target ID, (VDI) Numeric Readout, 3 Tone ID, Depth Meter, Battery Meter, Ground Monitor Meter, Sensitivity meter and Target indicator. There are also Touchpad controls for Sensitivity, Accept/ Reject Discrimination, All Metals - No Motion/ Pinpoint mode, 3 Factory Preset modes, All Metals (Motion) Self Tuning mode and for Smart Trac Automatic and Manual Ground Balancing.
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