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Hot Dirt In Virginia......
- Thread starter morelic55
- Start date
7centsworth
Well-known member
Don at north georgia relics once told me to use a dd coil and prospecting mold if I ever hunted in virginia.
Regardless of where you are, a smaller coil will handle the ground minerals better than a large one, and a DD will be better than a Concentric. It all has to do with how much mineralization is being "looked at" by the machine. A large concentric coil sees deep with a large footprint and is effected the most. A smaller CC will not look as deep and has a smaller footprint. And a DD searches with a narrow footprint, so a small DD won't go as deep or cover as much ground, but will do best against the minerals due to it's small narrow pattern. In between would be the larger DD coils.
Also, if you have a 705 you have the ability to run the Tracking Offset option. You might try going to +2 or +3 offset to ask the machine to treat the soil as if it were even hotter than it actually is by a little. If your Ground Phase numbers are consistantly in the single digits it may not help, but might be worth a try.
Also, if you have a 705 you have the ability to run the Tracking Offset option. You might try going to +2 or +3 offset to ask the machine to treat the soil as if it were even hotter than it actually is by a little. If your Ground Phase numbers are consistantly in the single digits it may not help, but might be worth a try.
Shenandoah Digger
New member
I hunted DIV with the 70 on more than one occasion. I used the 5 x 10 and the 10.5 MF and was able to dig bullets pretty deep. I tried the prospecting mode with iron mask at 20 and dug more bullets, but I was able to hear them in disc mode with no discrimination, so I usually used that mode. No matter what detector you use there, almost everything sounds like iron and will give you a minus 8 even if it's a good conductor, so you gotta dig everything, until you get tired of it. Shallow targets to four inches or so will usually ID correctly. And those guys with the superior GPX's dig some of the deepest nails I've ever seen. But of course they also make great finds. You just gotta dig it all there, no matter what machine you've got.
As a new hunter (started Nov 2011), I quickly saw the limitations of the Whites machine I bought used so I invested in an X-Terra 705 machine and got hooked up for the March 2012 DIV. I used the machine the only way I knew how at the time (sens 15-18, all metal mode). I found 1 bullet in the fields and nothing else. It wasn't til I hit the woods with the machine that I did any better (4 bullets, an eagle button, and a box plate!).
Since then I've done some more research and spent more time learning my machine. I read to hunt the hot soil in Culpeper successfully was to use a DD coil and hunt in prospecting mode. So I bought a NEL 12" eliptical DD and headed up for DIV XXII. I spent the first hour with a bullet and piece of brass I brought and dug a hole about 8" and just played with the machine until I felt comfortable with it. In prospecting mode the VID screen is useless - you must learn the sounds. So ther results: I found 15 bullets, some about 8-10" deep, and the expected iron. I did not find a single piece of brass. Not sure if I just didn't hear it or that my coil simply never passed over any. I will be taking the machine to DIV XXIII so I will learn more then (hopefully).
Since then I've done some more research and spent more time learning my machine. I read to hunt the hot soil in Culpeper successfully was to use a DD coil and hunt in prospecting mode. So I bought a NEL 12" eliptical DD and headed up for DIV XXII. I spent the first hour with a bullet and piece of brass I brought and dug a hole about 8" and just played with the machine until I felt comfortable with it. In prospecting mode the VID screen is useless - you must learn the sounds. So ther results: I found 15 bullets, some about 8-10" deep, and the expected iron. I did not find a single piece of brass. Not sure if I just didn't hear it or that my coil simply never passed over any. I will be taking the machine to DIV XXIII so I will learn more then (hopefully).
ryanchappell
New member
Old Longhair said:
Very true, but in that DIV hunt you are not going to want to limit yourself to targets only 2-5 inches deep, like that 6" coil would do in bad soil. The trade off for depth will probably pay off, just experiment. Now around a park, farmhouse, or foundation, a sweep with a sniper coil makes sense to find shallow targets in trash. If you are in a field you will want to go big DD, like Fever87 said, and if you locate a camp or someplace where the targets and trash become close, then go back to the sniper.
I really like using an 8" DD coil on my E-trac in my terrible soil, but would go to the 11" in a field. I think you are better off with a single frequency detector like the 705 at DIV or in fields, but you said you just live around Cullpepper, not that you hunt DIV. I like the E-trac in junky areas.
Steve in Idaho
New member
You have to put a thin plastic washer in with the head ears so as to take up the slack and not pull in the ears of the coil when you tighten down the plastic bolt and nut. This will stop the ear breakage. I have done this and never broken any ears off of any of my coils.