I’ve been running a Sovereign Elite on the beach for the last 15 years and have recently acquired a Dual Field PI that I use strictly for wet and shallow salt water. My Sov has auto iron reject in discrim mode as well as multiple pitch tones based on target conductivity, also has all-metal mode. When hunting the dry, I use discrim mode but keep discrim & notch knobs at 0. I’m not looking to discriminate out targets; I only use that mode to get auto iron rejection and multiple pitch tones to help me get a potential target ID.

I’ll also use discrim mode first when hunting the wet at an unfamiliar beach, to determine if there’s any iron present. If there’s not a lot of iron, I’ll switch over to my Dual Field.

This is widely known, but I always tend to get better depth when using all-metal mode vs. discrim. So, many times, I’ll hunt in all-metal, then switch over to discrim mode to get a possible target ID based on tones, and if the target is iron, the auto iron reject will null the signal, saving me a lot of digging.

Dilemma: Since all-metal mode is deeper than discrim mode, let’s say I get a signal that might be just at the all-metal mode’s limit of detection depth. If I switch over to discrim mode, the target might now be just below discrim mode’s detection depth, so if I don’t hear a signal when switching over to discrim, I assume it’s probably iron and the auto iron reject has nulled the signal. But what if it’s good target, just below the discrim mode’s detection depth?

Question: Just wondering how other reverse discrimination hunters handle this type of situation. Are there any tricks or techniques I might not be aware of that can minimize the chance that I’ll abandon a potentially good target if I don’t hear a signal when switching over to discrim mode?

And yeah, I know, I usually dig it all when beach hunting, especially when I’m running the PI, but the idea of using reverse discrimination is to minimize and/or help reduce the number of holes I need to dig when hunting in all-metal. Any tips, tricks, ideas?

Sand Sifter said:

I get a signal that might be just at the all-metal mode’s limit of detection depth. If I switch over to discrim mode, the target might now be just below discrim mode’s detection depth, so if I don’t hear a signal when switching over to discrim, I assume it’s probably iron and the auto iron reject has nulled the signal.

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If I get a signal in all metal and nothing in discriminate mode, I'll dig ... at least until I can get a good signal in discriminate mode that is either a solid no null and keep digging, or a solid null and walk away. Seems the normal is about four scoops to turn a good signal in all metal but no signal in discriminate mode into a solid signal (one way or the other) in discriminate mode. I've had good signals in all metal disappear when digging. Normally that means I dug next to it and it fell deeper beyond detection range. I dig those until I get the target back or out of the hole. I recall three rings I've recovered that did that disappearing act that I was glad I did not give up on.

tvr said:

If I get a signal in all metal and nothing in discriminate mode, I'll dig ... at least until I can get a good signal in discriminate mode that is either a solid no null and keep digging, or a solid null and walk away. Seems the normal is about four scoops to turn a good signal in all metal but no signal in discriminate mode into a solid signal (one way or the other) in discriminate mode. I've had good signals in all metal disappear when digging. Normally that means I dug next to it and it fell deeper beyond detection range. I dig those until I get the target back or out of the hole. I recall three rings I've recovered that did that disappearing act that I was glad I did not give up on.

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Thanks TVR, thanks for the reminder, I forgot about that, GREAT tip! Yeah, I encountered the disappearing signal phenomenon 15 years ago during my first-year beach detecting. I actually did a post about that last year.


After many aggravating experiences with lost signals, during one hunt, it happened again, and I got so angry that I shoved my scoop back in the hole, took another scoop, and the target was in the pile, turned out to be a coin. I theorized that the coin was lying flat when I first got the signal, which presented a larger surface area. But sometime during the digging, the scoop had pushed the coin up against the wall of the hole and it wound up standing vertically, which now only presents metal the width of the coin, not the entire surface area. Couple that with the possibility that the coin has dropped deeper into the hole, and it became almost impossible for the detector to reacquire the signal. But it was still in there and I've been taking extra scoops ever since.