Garrett Pro-Pointer AT
not scored here
The pinpointer most beginners end up with. Fully submersible to 20 ft, made in the USA, and the most reviewed product in this entire category.
- Rating
- 4.8/5 (8,800+ ratings)
- Water rating
- Submersible to 20 ft
Read this before you buy any of it
None of the products on this page are part of our detector ranking, and we have not run a field test on them - the same desk-comparison rule from our methodology applies here. What we did do is check the actual Amazon listing for each item: the title, the rating, the review count and, where it matters, whether it is built to fit a specific detector. Where we could tie a product directly to a coil size or a compatibility claim printed on its own listing, we say so. Where we could not, we say that too.
Why a $250 detector needs $60 of extras
A detector out of the box gets you signals. It does not get you the exact spot to dig, a tool that survives root-choked ground, ears that can hear a faint tone over wind, or a coil that still looks new after a season of swinging through gravel. Four accessories cover those four gaps: a pinpointer, a digging tool, headphones, and a coil cover. None of them are optional once you detect more than a couple of times a month - they are the difference between a hobby that stays fun and one that gets abandoned in a closet.
A pinpointer turns "somewhere in this hole" into "here"
Your detector's coil covers a circle several inches across. Once you have opened a plug and the target is buried in a pile of loose dirt, sweeping that same coil over the hole tells you the target is still in there - not exactly where. A pinpointer is a small handheld wand you point at the dirt pile or the hole wall, and it beeps or vibrates only when its tip is within an inch or two of metal. That turns a minute of crumbling dirt with your fingers into a five-second recovery, which matters most in loose sand and clay where a target can hide anywhere in a double handful of soil.
| Pinpointer | Rating on Amazon | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Garrett Pro-Pointer AT | 4.8/5 (8,800+ ratings) | The category standard - fully submersible to 20 ft, made in the USA |
| Minelab PRO-FIND 35 | 4.7/5 (1,400+ ratings) | Minelab owners - tone ID and adjustable sensitivity built to sit alongside a Vanquish |
A digging tool that outlasts the first root it hits
The trowel or hand shovel that ships with a starter kit, if one ships at all, is usually thin stamped metal that bends the first time it meets a root or compacted clay. A dedicated digging tool with a double-serrated edge saws through roots instead of stopping on them, and holds an edge through a season of use. A sheath that clips to a belt keeps it from riding around loose in a bag between holes, which sounds minor until you have dropped one in tall grass and spent ten minutes finding it with the same detector you were using to find coins.
Headphones do more than block the wind
A faint, borderline tone is exactly the signal most worth digging - deep coins and old jewellery rarely sound loud and clear. Open-air listening loses that signal to wind, traffic and your own footsteps, so a beginner who skips headphones is quietly walking past the best targets on the site. Headphones also cut how hard the detector's internal speaker has to work, which stretches battery life on a long session. The catch is that a headphone plug has to physically match the jack on your control box, so buying the accessory made for your brand is the safer route rather than betting on a generic pair.
| Headphones | Rating on Amazon | Stated compatibility |
|---|---|---|
| Garrett MS-2 Headphones | 4.7/5 (490+ ratings) | 1/4" stereo plug - the jack used across Garrett's ACE line, including our ACE 300 and ACE 200 picks |
| Bounty Hunter HEAD-PL | 4.6/5 (1,500+ ratings) | Listed by the manufacturer as compatible with Bounty Hunter detectors excluding the Junior model - fits our Land Ranger Pro and Tracker IV reviews |
A coil cover protects the one part that hits the ground every swing
The search coil is the part of the detector closest to the dirt, gravel and rocks on every single sweep, and the base of the coil housing is what actually takes that abrasion. A coil cover - sometimes called a skid plate - is a thin plastic shell that slides over the coil and absorbs the wear instead of the coil itself. It is cheap, it snaps on in seconds, and it is the single easiest way to keep resale value on a detector you might sell in a year or two.
The part that trips people up is sizing: a cover has to match your coil's exact dimensions, not just its brand. We already confirmed the stock coil sizes for the Garrett machines we track on our side-by-side comparison table - the ACE 200 runs a 6.5" x 9" coil and the ACE 400 runs an 8.5" x 11" coil, and Garrett sells a cover in each of those exact sizes. The ACE 300's 7" x 10" coil does not have an exact-size Garrett cover in the results we checked, so if you own that machine, measure your coil and match the listing before you buy rather than assuming the nearest size fits.
| Detector | Stock coil size | Matching cover we found |
|---|---|---|
| Garrett ACE 200 | 6.5" x 9" | Garrett 6.5x9 DD Coil Cover - exact match |
| Garrett ACE 400 | 8.5" x 11" | Garrett 8.5x11 DD Coil Cover - exact match |
| Garrett ACE 300 | 7" x 10" | No exact-size Garrett cover found - measure your coil before buying |
What we would buy first, in order
If money is tight, headphones come first - they cost the least of the four and change how many targets you actually hear in a single outing. A coil cover is next: it is cheap insurance on the part of the detector doing the most physical work. A pinpointer is worth adding once you are reliably finding targets and recovery time has become the bottleneck, rather than before you have dug your first coin. A dedicated digging tool matters most if the one that came in your box is already bending - if it still works, spend that money on the pinpointer instead.
