Bounty Hunter Tracker IV Metal Detector

I borrowed my wife's headphones (highly recommended) and headed for the woods. Within minutes I found beer cans, shotgun shells, nails. The detector will pinpoint an object close enough that you can dig it up with a few scoops of a garden trowel. On my second attempt I found a man's silver ring.

Tracker IV appears to be well constructed and a good value. I don't have any experience with other detectors, but I can't imagine that any are easier to use than this one. Tracker IV is a great choice for your kids to use, if they can get it away from you!


Fun and Easy to Use   May 9, 2001
121 out of 124 found this review helpful

The Bounty Hunter was exactly what I was looking for. My 11 year old son and I wanted to expore metal detecting together. I didn't want to invest a large amount of money in something that was too high tech or that he would lose interest in. I didn't want to spend too little and get a cheap product. This item was priced right and so far has proven to be a quality item. It was easy to assemble (maybe 5 minutes), takes 2 standard 9 volt batteries and is lightweight enough for my 11 year old to handle with ease. The shaft adjusts in height so when I finally get my turn, I can adjust it to fit me.

We are having a ball so far with it. We haven't found any high dollar finds yet, but the neighborhood kids have gone with us the last few days and made it a fun treasure hunt. In our search of a couple vacant lots, we have found 17 cents, lots of nails, an old bottle cap, a saw blade and other misc items. We plan on taking this into the mountains soon, as it is waterproof so you can look for gold in the rivers. We can't wait!


It's good, but.......   July 5, 2002
Sailoil (Dublin Ireland)
58 out of 183 found this review helpful

I collect rare bottle caps, and try to take care not to lose any of my collection. I was coming back from a convention recently and one of my collection boxes hopped out of the back of the pickup as I was crossing an old hump-back bridge, and fell into a small stream.

So I bought the metal detector to try to get my valuable collection back. This one said it is waterproof so I figured it might do the job.

Well, after three weeks of wading up and down the stream I have had mixed fortunes. A Celtic chalice, the silver cumtach (cover) from a medieval bible, two viking swords, a couple of daggers, a mound of celtic, roman and viking coins, an array of viking hacksilver, medieval broches and buckes from shoes and belts, delicately filigreed celtic gold jewellry and most notable of all (since the Romans never made it to Ireland) the metal fittings from eight complete and six incomplete sets of roman imperial legionnary armour.

OK, so I am famous now amongst scholars of the Romano-Celtic world. I have been awarded three honorary doctorate degrees for my finds, and I have been given freedom of the cities of Dublin and York, and I had to decline a Royal knighthood offered by the English Queen (I do have principles and I am an Irish Republican). But what is all this fame? I have lost a box of 200 bottle caps and not found a single one with the detector.

In that collection was a rare 1950's Kirin blue, a 1945 victory V double diamond crown cap and most valuable of all a Grolsch porcelain stopper from the first ever commercial batch. What does it profit a man to gain the world if he loseth his bottle cap collection?

If you buy the metal detector I hope you have more luck than me!


Great for casual metal detecting.   October 23, 2006
Wayne Kuban (Goodyear, AZ United States)
53 out of 55 found this review helpful

As a low cost metal detector I give this thing five stars. I bought this Detector several months back and enjoy it's relative ease of use, and it DOES find what you are searching for (coins, rings, earings, necklaces, etc). The other reviews here pretty much wrap it up as a good (affordable!) unit, but I wanted to make a few comments from an amateur's point of view:

- This detector has, of course, the discrimination circuitry used to tell the difference between the various metals helping you to avoid digging up junk like soda can pull tabs which are everywhere. It does work pretty good, BUT - I have found that by using the Tracker IV discriminator, you will most likely be missing some good stuff. I have gone back over "Discriminated" areas again in "All Metal" mode and found some nice stuff that Discriminate didn't catch. Granted I am no pro, but the fact is if you want to get every coin, every ring, or every cool item of various metals, you may want to consider just using "All Metal" mode. I almost exclusively use it now and although I sift through some absolute junk. I have found a bunch of coins, necklaces, pendants, etc that I would have otherwise missed. Use the Discriminate mode when looking for that gold wedding ring your wife through at you in the back yard...

- Invest in the 4 inch "Gold Nugget Coil" which is far superior at pinpointing metal. The stock coil works fine but is a tad ambiguous as to precisely where your coin, ring, (or pull tab) is. The smaller coil reduces search time and I am glad I have one.

- I bought the recommended Bounty Hunter Headphones (to save battery power), but have found them to be a bit more trouble than help. When I detect something I squat or sit down and dig. I set the detector down so the coil is near the dig zone so I can waive clumps of dirt (or sand) in front of the coil as I search. The problem is the headphone's wire tends to be always in the way when I perform this move. I get tired of "untangling" so I don't use them anymore. Maybe I'm just getting old.

- The meter is of no value for anyone who can hear the audible report. It has no "range" to judge metals you are passing over. It simply swings hard to the right no matter what from what I can tell. I have tried different modes and different metals to test it, but it seems to merely swing hard to the right as you pass over any type of metal / alloy. I can see how this would still be useful to a deaf person, but it just as easily could have been a bright light bulb instead of a meter. I won't ding this low cost detector for that though because I'd still dig if it was half scale or pegged.

- And lastly a warning. If you go into a park, or any area attended by kids, you will be spotted. Within a short amount of time you will be surrounded by kids "helping you" to dig up buried treasure. At that point you have to decide whether to be a meanie and bark at them, or write the rest of the hunt off and let them shred the area every time the detector beeps. I generally tell them how it's been a long day and "see ya" since they will invariably have their hands in there digging away no matter what you say...



Great way to start!   January 16, 2006
Carolyn Mathews (Horse Prairie, Montana)
45 out of 45 found this review helpful

When I started researching metal detectors before buying one for my husband, I was overwhelmed with all the reviews, ads, etc., I found on the internet. I printed out all the information that seemed to have a "voice of authority" behind it; it wasn't long before one brand/model seemed to take first place as the best choice for units under $300. Reviews from novices to experts concurred that the Bounty Hunter Tracker IV was a great buy as well as a great metal detector for novice to intermediate users. My husband is not someone who reads the instructions before using anything, but I showed him some of the printouts that warned against trying to use any metal detector without getting familiar with the instruction booklet first (because if you don't know what you're doing, you'll be frustrated and decide the detector doesn't work right). For once, he did spend time reading the instructions and then practicing with the detector as the directions advised. It wasn't long before he was out in the yard and up a mountain actually using his Bounty Hunter IV with success. I also bought him the Bounty Hunter earphones because I read that using earphones prolongs the battery life of the battery in the detector. Earphones also raise the user's chance of success by blocking noises that might cause some of the more subtle indicator sounds to be missed. We live in a windy, windy canyon, so the earphones were a must for blocking wind noise. So far my husband loves his Bounty Hunter Tracker IV, and the learning curve, according to him, was pretty short.