Metal Detecting discussions and finds

You may want to grid off an area and clean it out the best you can, and then move the grid. I like to have 4 bright colored golf tees in my bag to do gridding.
Just peg out a square about the width of your side to side swing. And match that distance completing your square to work.

Go at it with tge coil as close to the ground as you can, sweeping about 2-3 seconds from right to left. Repeat with 2-3 second swing from left to right. Overlap your swings by half the coil length and you'll be on your way to good detecting habits.

You see a lot of newbs swinging the coil like they are using a weed whacker, and essentially that is exactly all that is taking place. The coil can't detect any kind of depth if it isn't given the chance both proximity to the ground and sweep speed.

Take your time, there is no hurry to clear an area, and bad technique will absolutely hamper your efforts.

Oh. And back to gridding. After you cover your grid one direction, turn around and go the other way. Then hit 90, 180, 45 degrees. Basically cover every square inch in more than one direction.

 

You can also use a small splitshot fishing weight and smash it flat and it will sound just like GOLD. Like a nugget!

 

I ended up with a handful of nails,.a.pull tab and a horse shoe that got burried by the wind 10' from the pin. I was getting what I call the "game show error tone" and a high pitched tone next to it. My yard is pretty much sand and we do have a lot of minerals (the whole valley was once the Colorado River and we're at the south end of it so everything washed down at one time or another.)...anyway, still at the bottom of the learning curve. Need to put together a couple of decent diggers, bag and whatever else I think of along the way. Still hours of hunting in the backyard. I don't expect to find anything of value except knowledge. Will probably take it out next weekend to some of the active campgrounds just to get away from the nails in the yard.

 

That's good to know. I'll be right on some fishing areas. I pretty much anticipate finding quite a bit of hooks, tackle and fishing weights.

 

If you get an overload of tones over a signal, lift your coil up 6" at a time per swing until you lose the signal.

Large rusty iron and aluminum cans will sound awesome if they are deep, but obnoxious if they are anywhere near the surface.

A coin sized object will never sound off with the coil a foot or more above the ground, even if it is sitting right there on top. Well, maybe a silver dollar, but those are unicorns.

 

Martin, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to drag a large magnet strip around and around first an area in your yard that you plan to hunt. This will find and remove near surface iron that will just drive you nuts detecting.

Expect at least 100 hours of swing time to really get what your detector is telling you. But, once you and that ACE are talking the same language, you'll really start pulling the goodies.

I realize you live in hell and headphones would probably melt your ears, they really do a killer job of isolating background noises so you can really focus on the tones.

 

HOLY MOLI!!! I didn't know the CTX was that configurable!!!

 

Dude, this thing has all kinds of tricks.
Waterproof to 10 feet.
I can track my trails and upload to PC and overlay Google Maps. As well as mark and store what Minelab call Findpoints. Very similar to Waypoints. It will log your time settings, programs, and after you upload to the PC, you can add a picture to the Findpoint. Great for folks with OCD.

 

@Martin64 Yeah, TOTALLY AGREE the heat would suck. But with that said, having headphones is allllllllmost a must have part of your gear. Try to get headphones that have volume control knobs on them OR some kind of similar setup. The ACE series, at least mine, headphone jack port is a 1/4" mono plug.

Anyways, the "Garrett Mastersound Headphones" are the ones I got and use.


Obviously you don't have to get these, but I got them just to make my gear easy to connect, if you will (i.e. I don't have to think about some other setup). Plus they have volume control already built in to them... just plug and go.

 

HAHAHAHAHA, if that's the case then I know what to get my sister for X-mas!!! I'm SOOOOOO BAD.

Yeah, that is pretty damn COOL!!!

 

@INSAYN speaking of gridding, that's a good thing to keep with are the "bright colored golf tees"!!! I will have that as part of my gear!!!

I laid out an imaginary grid when I was searching for lost keys. It wasn't hard to keep my layout in my head, but it does NOT HURT to have helpful accessories/equipment on hand either.

I found the keys about 40min in!!! It's a long story, but he wasn't exactly sure/positive of where he last had them... just a rough approximate location. Notice the size of the Beach!!!

 

Subd...
Not a metal detector myself, but I'm definitely into numismatics, gold nuggets and buried treasure!

 

Then you should get at least a "starter machine" brotha!!! I'll be living in HB myself here by beginning of Sept. We can setup a time and I'll let you borrow my ACE350, for example, if you want to try it out???!!!

 

So down! I'll have to take you up on that.
I tried it when I was a kid and I guess I never really had the patience... or maybe the right gear. Got tired of finding bottle caps and wanted to just go play in the water ha ha ha.

I totally agree with what you were saying about the east coast vs the west coast as far as older states and better possibilities. I have a friend that has found cannon balls and old bullets frim the civil war. I'd love to go cruise around Gettysburg or some historical sites to see what crazy artifacts might be lying beneath the grass!

 

Hell yeah, then let's make arrangements to meet-up then!!!

Just make sure when going to "historical sites" that it is legal to MD, of course!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA

Also, bottle caps, pull tabs, etc are just ALL part of the MD'ing process. Of course, if it is clearly known to be a trashy area, then you might rethink about MD'ing at a particular location and just move on?

But with that said, it is really fun, for me at least, to see what that "signal is"?!

 

Trashy but old park is a go to, not a void. Just keep going back to it and hit the same areas over and over from different directions digging everything until you can't get any more signals. Then move to another area. If you ever get a newer or higher end detector, go back and redo those old hunts. Once you remove all the shit from the top 2-3", it clears a path for the signal to reach deeper older targets.

Pro tip: Old parks with really big oak trees. Hunt all around them. They have been there 200-600 years. They were shade for people in picnic groves on hot summer Sundays back in time.

 

I tend to disagree with this because it just isn't worth the time spent. I can take you to one particular park that I used to go to... try hunting.... and it was just a complete waste of time constantly "digging trash". I'm in it for "the hunt", yes, but being realistic about certain things is another matter.

Now, as stated, if "old", then I might think about it twice, but obviously a judgement call would have to be made at some point regardless on whether it is worth the time? For example, I repair circuit boards and if the board has been damaged beyond time taken to repair it, the cost/efficiency factor comes into play and it just isn't worth the time to bother repairing the board, but yet you know it can be done, just not within a timely manner. Replacing it is more beneficial, but the attempt at repairing is, at least, still done because there are certain times where it actually benefits the customer themselves.

So it's a matter of a viewpoint and judgement call... considering the situation at hand.

The point being, will you eventually find something worth, the likelihood is a yes. But, are you taking away time hitting other areas that may benefit in finding something better other than trash, this is a yes as well. Just simply saying and not trying to "argue" in that sense.

 

Your point is well taken, and the analogy isn't far off either.

I too work with electronics, but in my industry, we just replace the board and get the machine back up. Send the bad board out to be refurbished at a leisure pace.

Let me reephesize the old park that is trashy. Reserve these for days when you are bored or don't have another new hunt location readily on tap. Hopefully you have an old park within 20 mins of you to gradually clean out over time.

After 20 years of detecting parks, schools and curb strips, I tend to gravitate towards the deeper faint signals. This gives up the silver coins, antique rings, wheats and indian heads. I have done very well finding these after clearing the trash out of various sections of old parks. Rarely do I bother hitting tot lots, bleachers or areas where recent clad is normally found. It just doesn't do it for me.

Also, Compass and Whites are both local detector companies to me, which results in most of the obvious spots have been picked over really well since the 60's. Btw...Compass was right here in my town since the 60's, but burned down the year I moved into my house (1996).

Unfortunately our beaches in Oregon do not have shit for goodies, as the ocean is never above 55F year round. Nobody makes a habit of losing rings, money, or other goodies in the sand. That leaves us with inland dirt fishing at its finest.

 

MAN I was HOPING you would NOT take my reply "offensive". I'm glad you did not.
Finally, that "old park" I just drove by last week was established around early 80's or so!!!

 

We're good, bro.

Two things regarding "offended" or "offensive" with me.
1. I am not a Millennial, so I don't get caught up in the whole "offended" thing at all.
2. If I wrote something that was taken offensively by someone, I either meant for it to be or I didn't. I wouldn't burn calories on it either way.

That is just me (and probably most folks over 40 right now).

Back to "old parks".
If your park was established circa 1880's, that would be for sure a go to spot to keep working until you get down to the old stuff.

If your park is more like 1980's, but has really big oak trees then I would still make a go at it.
Just pick one or two of the biggest trees and hunt around them for an hour here and there.
If it's trashy, yes it will keep you busy, but once you find an old silver in there you will keep coming back over the years.