coins giving an "iron" reponse

[Old Longhair]

Please be sure to measure both the magnetic and conductive mineral levels when you do your test, as these numbers could be revealing.

I must say though, that I find it interesting that in all the years the Xterra has been out I've never heard anyone else with this issue. I personally hunt some sites where I don't dig anything much less than 6-7", and most targets are deeper. I'm not disputing your claim, but I can't help but think there's more to the story that we're not yet aware of. So keep the info coming, please.

 

[mojotrout]

Will do OLH. I will try to get out to the garden this afternoon and get those numbers. I'll also contact the gentleman that did his testing in Oregon and see if he can get us some Magnetic/conductive numbers from his garden as well. i also need to find out how old his garden is. mine is just over a year so that's one more variable to consider.

Im surprised too, as Ive never read anything about this issue with the X-Terras other than some general comments about how most detectors of all brands will at some point lose their ability to ID a target at depth. Although, unless you did this specific test you would never realize the machine was behaving in this manner -unless you were digging all of those deep iron signals as a relic hunter or a very curious and energetic digger.

And just to reiterate, these are results in our soil types in a coin garden environment and Im sure this is not the case in all situations everywhere. Hopefully, we can figure out just why this is happening and adapt our hunting/settings to mitigate it.

 

[mojotrout]

P.S. -- has anyone air tested and got an iron grunt with a silver or clad coin? Mine didnt do it when I air-tested but I'll try again just to see if i can make it.

 

[kevmar]

Believe me the difference must be in your soil matrix,
here in the UK ,a lot of land is heavily contaminated with ferrous (iron) particles,
through human interference,or naturally occurring in the earth.
I have had very good 20 + signals on very thin medieval hammered silver coins,in fact I have 6 on the computer table here in front of me.
The smallest is about 7 mm in diameter,that on iirc was nailed at about 8/9 inches.
If you get a nice deep signal,dig the hole and it disappears,and is not in the spoil,then that's a job for the pin point probe,
as the hole becomes an ''in air'' test if you like,almost all detectors work better in ground,than in air.
I have had silver coins at far greater depths too.
As for our modern iron/steel dipped copper coins,they are indeed ''iron' to the machine,the old 2 pence piece compared to the new
is a point in fact,aren't your 'clad coins' basically low value metal dipped to look good?

 

[Canewrap]

Ah, but a tin flat button I have buried at 8 inches gives an iron grunt and now I'm starting to realize that I've probably walked over a few good targets, when hunting bad ground.

 

[Old Longhair]

ID being skewed at depth I can understand, but not as low as the iron range.

I went to my 100+yr old proving ground park yesterday just to further test on deep targets. Finding any coins there that aren't recent drops is a challenge anyway, so I started digging everything that hit that was deep. I had the Coiltek 15" 3kHz DD All Terrain coil on, cranked up as hot as it would remain stable.
Without exception I knew before I dug which were coins and which were junk. Not one surprise. I dug more bits of canslaw, nails, smashed screw caps, rusty crown caps, wads of foil, and pulltabs of all shapes and styles than I've dug in a single outing in years. Not one iron signal turned out to be anything but iron.

 

[mojotrout]

Update--

Did the "minerlization test this morning with these results:

01 74 78

If my understanding is correct, this indicates medium - almost mild ground.

So in conclusion - 3 Xterra 705 machines, 5 coils (9" 7.5, 6" 3 (x2), 10.5" 7.5, 10X5 18.75, 9" 3), two gardens, three operators, and the same iron grunt from all machines and coils on a 7 inch clad dime, a 8 inch clad quarter in one garden (mine), and a 6.5 inch silver dime in another garden (in E. Oregon, unknown minerialization). To be fair, there were some high tones when the 48 reading hit on alternate swings with the 10.5 DD 7.5 coil, but still low tones on the other half of the swings. Also, the two different Digger coils failed to "see" the deep dime and qtr at all, so no iron grunt on those. No Digger tested on the 6.5 " silver dime in E. Oregon.

I still like this machine, it is still very versitile, but for deep coin shooting Im going to look for a more "honest" responding set up.

 

[Old Longhair]

What were the conductive mineralization numbers? (you only posted magnetic)

My curiosity is really peaked, because I can't get results like that if I try. I'm much more likely to get high tones on low conductors than low tones or the blunt punch preceding a high tone that you call a grunt on high conductors. I've wasted all of one outing and half of another chasing garbage just to reprove it to myself.

 

[Squirmingcoil77]

As a dedicated X-Terra owner, I must say that I've come across the same issue. The only thing I can say with my one year of experience is that there's pretty much nothing you can do. The great thing about the X-Terra is that it WILL hit deep targets but not ID them properly. At least from my own experience. I had buried a 9in nickel and it rang up around -8 -6. My DFX wouldn't even make a peep on it. That's why I love this machine. It will hit deep, but not ID properly the deep targets. It's something you have to live with. But I dig it all. That's how you find the surprises