Hit a park Sunday that has history going back to the Civil War and after that became a post Civil War and Victorian neighborhood. The neighborhood fell into disrepair many decades ago and they started tearing the houses down and then simply pushed them over the hillsides throughout the park. Everywhere you go in this park you see broken china, relics, etc. A small coil is a must have to search there. You dig a lot of trash but the relics that pop out are more than worth the effort. I began hunting a small area with the X-5 and started picking out the good tones from the iron using the open screen, 25 ferrous line and multi tones. My first good target was the remains of a Royal Crown Cola bottle carrier and a small glass bottle in the same hole. Just a few feet away, I dug a small two piece button 2 inches deep that turned out to be a Culver (Indiana) Military Institute button. Very cool button. I then moved on and dug a very unusual skeleton key with an older script numeral 2 on it. It's a very unusual key and if anyone has any idea what it was used with I would greatly appreciate any info on it. I continued hunting the small area and dug lots more interesting targets.
After breaking for lunch, we decided to hit a small knoll in the park where the Union troops had been set up on. This small knoll has now given up nearly thirty bullets and other artifacts from the Civil War. The previous time I was there I scoured the hill with the X-5 because the targets were so thick and there was a lot of can slaw that needed to be cleaned out. I hunted it until I couldn't get any more signals with the X-5.
This time I swapped out to the stock 11" coil and hunted with an open screen and two tone ferrous to look for any deeper targets. The site came alive again with signals and I proceeded to dig 7 more projectiles including two dropped 58 caliber minie balls, one fired 58 minie ball, a 58 caliber musket ball and three buck balls. Most of the bullets were in the 7-8" range. It was awesome crawling along picking out the tiny blips from all the iron and then recovering a deep bullet that hadn't seen the light of day for over 150 years.
After breaking for lunch, we decided to hit a small knoll in the park where the Union troops had been set up on. This small knoll has now given up nearly thirty bullets and other artifacts from the Civil War. The previous time I was there I scoured the hill with the X-5 because the targets were so thick and there was a lot of can slaw that needed to be cleaned out. I hunted it until I couldn't get any more signals with the X-5.
This time I swapped out to the stock 11" coil and hunted with an open screen and two tone ferrous to look for any deeper targets. The site came alive again with signals and I proceeded to dig 7 more projectiles including two dropped 58 caliber minie balls, one fired 58 minie ball, a 58 caliber musket ball and three buck balls. Most of the bullets were in the 7-8" range. It was awesome crawling along picking out the tiny blips from all the iron and then recovering a deep bullet that hadn't seen the light of day for over 150 years.
