F-75 Ltd: Musket Balls - Best settings

[bocash3]

Howdy. Once again not new to metal detectors but am still "green" with a new F75 Ltd......using standard coil at present but also have the optional 5" round coil. Have not
installed that one as of yet because both my Gold Bug Pro and Makro Gold Racer have 5" coils.

OK................ Nickels used to frequently escape my wonderful Whites Spectrum XLT, maybe because of the custom C and J settings I installed? FIRST TIME out in a real backwoods
church parking area this week (we are talking WAY back in the sticks), I hit 3 1936 Buffalo Nickels, a modern nickel, a few pennies, and one dime. The nickel finds really opened my eyes to this machine.
I think I was running the sound at 3H and All Metal.

So today, reset to default settings, then only changed sensitivity to 87, audio to Plus 3, and the Sounds? to 4H. Went to top of hill known to have musket balls from a 1780 skirmish.
On the way up, I was hitting tons of small iron from an old home site that never registered over 7-8, so ignored those. Once on top where a group of Patriots stood against Loyalist troops, I got faint signals from down deep that were hitting 97-99. Dirt was hard as concrete. Even if I got past the first two inches, then I had a maze of fresh roots to deal with. This hill was mostly logged last winter.
I actually bent the sharp end of my new Fisher 2-ended pick............ can't remember the name of it........... while trying to pry through roots. Hot, exhausted, and almost dark, I quit without getting down to a single target. (I did find one .22 slug near the surface).

The machine sort of began doing something strange. I would get a faint signal, see 97-99 on the meter, pull pin-pointer, and only half the time I would get a response. Maybe because of extreme depth? Each time I pulled the PP, the number 16 would show up. ALL numbers disappeared from the screen quite a number of times. So maybe I need some help adjusting?

I feel that 242 years of lying on a forested hill top, along with past logging, probably accounts for the heavy lead "sinking," so have to believe I was standing over at least a dozen lead balls up there but will have to wait on soaking rains to soften some of that "concrete" soil.

What settings would y'all recommend just for the musket ball search? And if any of you have hunted Rev. War battlegrounds, how deep do you find these things?

Thanks so much in advance, Bo

 

[david bull]

A 99 vdi usually shows a larger iron target.Most minnies in good soil seem to register in the 50’s-60’s.If you were getting three tones you were in discriminate mode..My personal settings for my local “hot” soil, disc@6,tone@1,mode@de,signal@70’s.I have to do the coil“wiggle” and try to make the vdi rise into the teens,as many targets will read totally different when they are out of the ground.

 

[WV62]

I have never found anything good at those really high vdi numbers 97 to 99. I don't hunt minnies but that 50 to 60 vdi sounds about right. If you have a musket ball just run it in front of the coil and that will give you a ball park ID number.
Now I am a coin hunter and hunt a local part that goes back to the early 1900's and I can hunt the grassy areas and find old coins down to at least 9 or 10". That same park has a lot of woods and I can hunt there and the same age coins will be just below the surface down to 3 or 4". So in general I don't believe coins sink and I would say that goes for musket balls, they are covered up by grass clippings that turn in to dirt and in the woods it is leaves once a year. So if that is true your musket balls would start about 3 or 4 inches in the woods down to about 8".
So just set your disc for nickels and those musket balls should start coming out of the ground. The number of tones has nothing to do with finding things except to give you a idea with your hearing based on the tone of the target. So your number of tone settings is more of the one you like the best. Your sensitivity setting is one that you need to work with, let's say you just run it a max I would say your machine will be unstable with crazy ID number like 97 and 99. I would say your machine would run better if the sensitivity was set in the 80's to low 90's.
Hope I didn't set the stage for those that believe targets sink, this is just what I came up with, with my 45 years of detecting. And yes I believe coins will sink if dropped in a area that is wet for a lot of a year.
Hope this helps,

Ron in WV

 

[bocash3]

David and Ron: THANKS so much. This makes sense. So I may not have been over actual musket balls, but most likely some kind of iron.
Could the 97-99 readings on the screen have been heavy minerals or rusted iron that has broken down? I have an old 62 caliber musket ball recovered years ago with
the Spectrum XLT and am going to "show" it to the F75 this afternoon to see how it acts. It makes sense now that the readings should be
in the 60's range. So my digging and sweating yesterday on those high 90 signals was just part of my learning.....DUH..........I need to remember
that the XLT would hit 99 and "overload" when over large pieces of old wood stoves. Old brain is trying to put all this together. HA HA.

 

[jim tn]

Could the 97-99 readings on the screen have been heavy minerals or rusted iron that has broken down?

I run into rust spots with not only the F 75 that sound and read pretty darn good. I don't recall in the 15-16 years I've used the F 75 ever recovering a 97-99 reading that was good. And the majority of my Civil War bullets were also in the 50-60 readings range. Great detector! HH jim tn

 

[miserman]

You stated you were running the sound at 3H and All Metal. Do you mean 3H "O" Discrimination ? As others have stated 97-99 readings are never good targets. Are you remembering to Fast Grab Ground Balance ?

 

[Ronstar]

I live on what used to be an old homestead (built 1880s give or take) and the original house was demolished to build a new one in 1963. This was an old farm to boot with about 5-6 acres of apples.

I’ve often gone out the back door to try new settings etc with my detectors. The F75 will grunt often at older iron but usually will go soprano on you with cast iron or thicker iron pieces or larger “flat” chunks. More than once I’ve hit shallow big iron and had that police siren start wailing in my ears!!!
Im learning the Legend now and one good way to learn your hearing is to find a target and then just start changing number of tones, Sens and Threshold, etc etc. without digging the target up. If you break the soil up and then try changing the setting you will not get an unbiased sound and tone. Some tones just sound better than others and you can just about change the clarity of the tones as well by making slight adjustments.

 

[bocash3]

You stated you were running the sound at 3H and All Metal. Do you mean 3H "O" Discrimination ? As others have stated 97-99 readings are never good targets. Are you remembering to Fast Grab Ground Balance ?

To be honest, can't remember if it is set on zero Discrim............. and the detector is in another building at the moment. But yes, running 3H, 87 sensitivity, DE, and I forgot what else, if anything, other than default.

UPDATE to earlier post: I went back to same said backwoods church and finished running a shallow ditch next to what appears to be an old expansion to their parking area. I found a 4th Buffalo, also with same 1936 date, a Mercury 1916 dime, and a Walking Liberty quarter, worn nearly smooth. ALL 6 of these older coins were found in a 20-25 foot circle and none deeper than 2 inches. What gives? There are two outhouses at this old church...........one old frame one (ladies) set in some woods. A more modern fiberglass port-a-john sets on far side of the enlarged parking area. So am now wondering if this bed of coins could have been where an older mens outhouse was?? VERY PUZZLING!! Most Buffalo nickels I've ever seen had their date years worn off or nearly so. So ALL 4 Buffaloes have crisp 1936 dates. ????????????????????????? The quarter and dime were nearly worn flat and all 6 of these older coins were very clean.

Dumbfounded in Western NC

 

[Picketwire]

According to Mr. Keith Southern, deep musket balls drop VIDs considerably when they are deep.

 

[bocash3]

Update: Chose the F-75 out of 3 detectors yesterday to run a field where a 1890 school used to be (remote area). Got hit with a T'shower and had to quit
after 60 minutes. Every "quarter" or "dime" turned out to be a buried beer can. Quite a contrast to the hunt above where several older coins were found. So getting
confused as to how to read the confidence meter versus actual ID numbers. Hate to say it, but the older Spectrum XLT seemed to weed out difference between cans and silver coins with more accuracy. So I really like the new F-75, but have not put up the XLT for sale. When the XLT numbers say dime or quarter and its two confidence bars both go up, the coin is always there....................

 

[david bull]

Update: Chose the F-75 out of 3 detectors yesterday to run a field where a 1890 school used to be (remote area). Got hit with a T'shower and had to quit
after 60 minutes. Every "quarter" or "dime" turned out to be a buried beer can. Quite a contrast to the hunt above where several older coins were found. So getting
confused as to how to read the confidence meter versus actual ID numbers. Hate to say it, but the older Spectrum XLT seemed to weed out difference between cans and silver coins with more accuracy. So I really like the new F-75, but have not put up the XLT for sale. When the XLT numbers say dime or quarter and its two confidence bars both go up, the coin is always there....................

This is where raising your coil and sweeping to distinguish between coins and cans will come in handy….

 

[bocash3]

This is where raising your coil and sweeping to distinguish between coins and cans will come in handy….

Good idea, David!! THANKS. Another update: Used the F-75 at a well-used NF trail head today and over 20 coins (pennies, dimes, and quarters) popped out of the ground in less than one hour, nothing old however. The F-75 was really humming!! Then went to a really trashy NF primitive campsite and switched to the Garrett AT Gold just for kicks. Ran it on the more restrictive "Decrim 2 setting." Another 5 coins popped out of the ground but also dug an equal number of tab tops and another equal number of fired pistol slugs. Dark set in before I could go to any of the many other stream side camp sites. No nickels found today.

Where as my old XLT was dead-on with pennies, dimes, and quarters, I'm seeing the F-75 may be reading those same coins deeper. Am enjoying learning new machines.

 

[Ronstar]

F75 can and will surprise you. Last year I was getting a pesky jumpy number target and just about left it as I know there is iron in the ground. I dug just to see what it was (expecting square nails) and I found a couple older nails. Re-scanned the plug and still getting a high number blip (90-91 if I remember) so I dug a little deeper, more iron. Scanned again, 90 now more prominent so scooped some more. Dug my first silver dollar at nearly 10”!!!!

But, I also have $1,000 in old bottle caps that the machine said 99% were quarters too…….