Bounty Hunter TK4 Tracker IV Metal Detector with 8-inch Waterproof Coil

Customer Reviews

• S. W.

  Great gift for kids.

  I remember as a kid wanting a metal detector. And I have a vague recollection of actually using one when I was about 10 years old. It belonged to a friend of mine. I don't remember much about it other than how it made me feel. It was like someone gave me a treasure map and said, "Go find the treasure." I was excited at the idea that maybe I was going to find something worth thousands of dollars. No, hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was my destiny! Hehe. Well, that's what I felt when I was a kid holding that thing for the first time.Anyway, forward a good number of years, and now I have a couple nephews around that age. I think long and hard about what to get them for Christmas. I always get them interesting, unusual gifts each year. I try to imagine what I would have wanted when I was their age. And I insist on it having some aspect that makes them think or learn about stuff.And so for Christmas 2010 (a little over a year ago), I was making a list of all kinds of stuff I might want to give them for Christmas. Then it came back to me how I would have loved a metal detector growing up. And so, that's what I got them. My youngest nephew was 9 years old and the other was 12, by the way, when I gave them this.I'm real picky about what I get, though. It took me a while of shopping and looking at specs and reviews before I decided that this was the best metal detector for the price. Most people said they thought it was of better build quality than most others for this price. It's ergonomic also, which was important to me since I didn't want my nephews to feel like it was too heavy or putting too much strain on their wrists. It can be used by kids or adults.No, it doesn't have the fancy displays and bells and whistles that some of the more expensive models have, but that stuff isn't even something most people care about. What people care about is if it can find stuff. And according to my nephews' results and all the other reviewers out there, it is definitely up to that task. You don't need a fancy LCD or LED display. Those things add very little to the overall experience, and I personally think having an old fashioned analog display like this is actually cooler. It certainly makes it easier to understand, especially if you're a kid. And you don't have to worry about not being able to see the display in bright sunlight like you do with LCD displays.This product even has swappable parts, so you can swap out the head with another one that detects more gold or another one which detects a smaller area or a larger depth. The head that comes with the unit is pretty good for finding metals in general, though, so I doubt we'll ever get those other parts. But it's that sort of thing that caught my eye about this product. It says that the manufacturer has put a lot of thought into its design and doesn't just want to sell you a new unit each time.Actually, this metal detector went to only one of my two nephews, the older (12 years old at the time) one. I thought about getting them both one each, but I expected they would share it. And I was right. My brother tells me they both love it. The older nephew moves it around while the younger one digs for the treasure. They're a two man team, and it goes a lot faster that way since one can continue looking while the other is digging away. It was maybe just a little too big for the younger nephew (9 years old at the time), but he could still use it just fine.Anyway, my brother tells me they bring it with them on family trips and vacations. Especially to the beach. Apparently they've already found some things of real value. They found a watch valued at over $250 on the beach one day. They found an expensive knife once. They find coins. And of course bottle caps. This just adds a whole other dimension to any family outing. My brother tells me that they look forward to being able to use the metal detector whenever they go on trips now. They take it everywhere.Here's something you'll want to do. I told my brother before giving them this Christmas gift from me that he had to throw some coins around the yard ahead of time. Then when they open up the present, I told him to tell them that there are coins hidden in the yard for them to find and go to it! They enjoyed that a lot, and it got them hooked on day one. I think my brother said they found most of the coins he put out there, too. And they found some stuff he didn't even know about. Cool!As for the educational value of this, it's phenomenal. The kids learn about electro-magnetic fields and metals. They also dig up pieces of history and try to research what it is they've found. And poking around nature, they get to see the natural world, which is something a lot of kids don't do these days.Actually, for older teenage kids and adults, there's yet another educational level to this, which I didn't even know about until I saw something on TV about it. Apparently there are "historical" treasure hunters out there. They learn about historical places that used to exist but are now just uninhabited wilderness or maybe public parks and such. They're not historically famous places like Valley Forge or something. Those places don't let you do any metal detecting, I don't think. But at these non-famous places, you can use your metal detector and dig all you want. Since they're obscure places, they may not have already been gone over by others with metal detectors yet. And that means you can sometimes find really interesting things.So to any parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles out there, this is a great gift to get the young ones. It has stood the test of time. My nephews are still excited about it and take it everywhere. They now have iPhones, iPads, PS3's, and laptop PC's. You can give them yet another video game to add to their collection, and it will be cool for all of a couple weeks or so. The metal detector isn't something they'll outgrow or get bored of that easily. It's something they'll keep coming back to when they get bored of all the other stuff they have. It also gets them out of the house and into the real world for a change. For the price, it's well worth it for the entertainment and educational value. I highly recommend it.Hope that helps.

  See more See less

• S. V.

  Found my husband's wedding band!

  Well worth the money - worked like a charm! My hubs owns a grading/excavating company and was pressure washing his very dirty excavator in our large gravel lot that was covered in fall leaves and dirt/mud when he realized his ring was missing - he had forgotten to take it off ahead of time. We looked into metal detectors and ordered this one after reading the reviews. It was pretty easy to use (we'd done our homework and watched a couple instructional videos) and we found his ring within a few minutes. So thankful for this device!!

  See more See less

• c. b.

  Works great

  Night it for my husband and to find my ring I lost outside. We never found it but we did find a vintage bicycle bell. Pretty blue price of glass. Some bottle caps and matchbox cars.

  See more See less

• J.

  Bounty Hunter TRACKERIV/TK4-PL Tracker IV Metal Detector

  I have had little experience with metal detectors, except for having built one once about 40 years ago as a project I found in an electronics magazine. I still understand in principle how these devices work from that experience and from a general background in electronics. Basically a balanced circuit is produced in the two coils at the end of the unit. When the flux lines in the coils are changed by induced eddy currents (by passing near a metal object), a difference signal is generated from the unbalanced conditions which lets the operator know that something has changed in the field of the detector coil. BTW, this is why one must move the coil in order to induce a signal. A static coil does not experience any changes. Different metal groups produce different phase responses, which allow for some rough discrimination of the type of metal producing the response.My point is that these things can finicky as most anything that changes the reluctance of a tuned circuit will generate a difference signal. So the trick is to just generate a signal when an object of interest is passed over.All of that said, I am favorably impressed with the operation of this moderately priced unit. It is rugged. It is very stable. It is sensitive without being too sensitive so that too many false signals are generated. The notch filter function seems to work well. It does not seem to be much affected by soil mineralization (at least in my yard) or soil moisture levels.I purchased the unit to find nails in the yard. I had my roof replaced a couple of months ago and even though the crew did an excellent job and ran magnetic nail sweeps over and over the yard, I could still go out with a powerful hand held magnet mounted on a short wooden handle and find nails. After several weeks of this sporadic activity, I realized that if I were to have a shot at finding 99.9% of the extant nails, I would need a better way to detect them. Hence this detector.I use the detector in the non-discrimiating mode and have found nails that were obviously left over from when the house was built almost 20 years ago! For this purpose it has worked and worked well. I have even done a small amount of digging to get the long buried metal up and out of the yard for no other reason than I can locate it and then retrieve it.No treasure, so far.Learning to narrow down the source of a signal by making "X" sweeps takes a bit of practice. After only a few minutes, however, even a novice such as I can quickly get an idea of whether the object is on or under the surface and if it is iron/steel or not.The grand daughters, 6 going on 7, and 9 going on 14, have taken to this device in a big way.Let me explain.I salted two areas of my rather large yard with 1- $1 coin, 5 quarters, 5 dimes, five nickels, and five pennies each. These areas were well removed from one another. I made sure that the coins were not very visible, but otherwise were dropped randomly. When the grand daughters last came to visit, I asked them to help me find treasure in my yard. I produced two wadded up "treasure maps" and let them select which one they wanted. Then I showed them the metal detector and explained how it worked. I had a minute timer along with two baggies labeled with their names in my pocket. The timer was to keep the peace as each girl got ten minutes alternately. The baggies were to keep the loot separate and separated.I believe the 6.5 year old would still be out there looking, if we had not forced her to come in that evening. All in all the youngest found all but 6¢ but oddly enough, she ended up with 4¢ more than I had planted. You see, she found a dime that I had not put there! The older one came up 11¢ short and was most disappointed that her sister had found more than she! As a bonus, they did find 7 nails that I had not expected to find as these were in areas well removed from the perimeter of the house.I also had an opportunity to explain to the older one that this was an application of science, where she could use a device to sense things that she could not see, hear, or feel. This made an impression on her, I could tell.They want to come back and do this again!Suits me fine.So what does this have to do with a review of a purchase? This unit has worked well in not only my hands but in the little, inexperienced, and often clumsy hands of two children (after shortening the pole). It is light enough in weight that neither I nor the children had any difficulty using it. The smaller did have to use two hands, however.I am pleased with it in general, but I have yet to test it for unsalted "coin shooting" (I love that term), relic hunting, prospecting, or general treasure hunting as in finding objects of value say at a public beach, park, etc.I would recommend it as a good, affordable, general purpose metal detector, with the caveat that I have few benchmarks such as how a higher end unit would perform for comparison, such as a unit that worked by pulse induction, for example.

  See more See less

• P. C. R.

  Fg

  Esta bueno,

  See more See less

• «
• ‹
• 1
• 2
• 3
• ›
• »