My positive experience with using the Silencer to ID civil war minnie balls

[msviking]

One of my favorite sites to hunt for civil war relics is also littered with modern bottle caps. The VDI of minnie balls in air tests is around 71 (11.7 kHz), in the ground they read anywhere from 71-the low 90's. The million bottle caps at my site show VDIs in the exact same range making finding the bullets a challenge. I hunt with a low Reactivity setting of 1 with the Silencer set at 1. In this setting the bullets give a nice sweet sound with the tone building to a crescendo then evenly dissipating. The bottle caps are a stark contrast in that they (while having same tone frequency) have a very abrupt start and truncated finish. The difference is very easy to hear. I hunt the same ground with my CTX 3030 (which I love) but I have not been able to find a way to distinguish bottle caps from minnie balls, therefore in this area the CTX stays in the truck.

Here are a few of the bullets I have found with my XP Deus as well as a nice axe head which I found today.

HH
Robert

 

[CZconnoisseur]

Looks like you have a good spot there! Bottlecaps can be troublesome, but I'm getting better at hearing the difference. Seems like the VDI likes to jump around a bit on bottlecaps, and most of them have a clipped, or truncated sound like you said. A nice, clear coin signal (at least where I'm hunting) has a solid VDI and a "round sound" whereas the caps like to jump around and not particularly stick to any VDI. Ive dug the caps just to see, and it's almost always the case.

Deeper caps are a little tougher, but still lack that tone that a deep coin has - dug a 5" cap today that sounded almost perfect; but also dug a few 6" copper pennies that sounded beautiful - even with multiple nails and tacks in the same hole. Beginning to understand what the Deus designers meant when they stated the best discrimination program for a metal detector is your brain. Deus Fast let you hear all the iron as well as mid and high-toned targets - and I've been digging out all the surface iron in one spot to see if it's masking anything. So far, I haven't found anything under the iron that the Deus couldn't see with the initial sweep.

Seems like foil and small aluminum slaw has a better ability of masking deeper coins vs iron. Last night I dug a few bits of foil from surface to 3" down, once that was gone I was able to hit a faint 7" Wheat deeper in the hole. Maybe hunting in 8 kHz would mitigate some of the foil and smaller stuff just above iron conductivity, but at times 12 kHz is much better with handling EMI than 8 kHz - and vice versa. Have no idea what's causing the interference, just part of dealing with the site!

How deep are you finding the bullets vs the bottlecaps? Also been wondering if the 11" coil has better separation that the 11" X 13" coil - if so, it will be an interesting experiement to see if I can "hunt out" an area with the large coil and then come in behind it with "new and improved" just to see what else is there!

Keep us posted!

 

[msviking]

CZ: I agree with your observations. Coins tend to have a pretty solid/stable VDI as where caps jump around sometimes as well as not sounding as "round". I have noticed that a coin or bullet tends to sound more truncated the shallower it is, I am not sure how much of the rounding effect is due to depth or metallurgy ?

Most of my bottle caps are less than 4" as where almost all my bullets are >6". Having said that since I am initially hunting only by sound and not VDI the first hint of a good target is that round sound then followed up by a depth confirmation. If the object is real shallow I tend to pass it up regardless of sound or VDI as I know it will either be a bottle cap or clad coin.

All part of the learning process with the XP Deus.

HH
Robert

 

[Big Boys Hobbies]

Love all those bullets! Have you tried the coil drag back method? Right before the signal drops off the coil caps get scratchy...

 

[msviking]

Bart:
Are you talking about using the wiggle back method with the XP or the CTX? as I have not worked with that method and am always looking for a way to minimize the bottle caps.

Thanks
Robert

 

[j piddle]

CZ using 8 kHz will not help uncover targets below the small scrap. You may not hear the small stuff but it will stil block any target that is below the pcs.of trash. It's called silent masking.

 

[Deusdigger]

If you use the wiggle back method the same as you do with the CTX, at the very edge of the bottle caps most of the time you will get a slight iron buzz or an abrupt tone loss if you have the iron volume on where as the good targets will have a nice rounded tone as the coil leaves the target.

 

[Deusdigger]

CZ using 8 kHz will not help uncover targets below the small scrap. You may not hear the small stuff but it will stil block any target that is below the pcs.of trash. It's called silent masking.

I have had different experiences; I have dug good targets with a nail or other bits of trash above it. I think the trick is to swing slow and low and pay close attention to the tones, can

 

[samandnoah]

Similar to what Deusdigger wrote, I typically use 12 kHz (NO normalization) for general purpose park hunting. I have a 4 kHz program adjacent to it. Even when bottle caps sound great, a quick toggle over to the 4 kHz program will show a higher VDI value if it is a bottle cap. So a bottle cap that sounds good and shows a VDI of 88 in 12 kHz will show up as something like a 92 or 93 VDI in 4 kHz. Just move on! It's quick and easy -- but I'm sure, CZ, that it's easier when you have the controller and don't just relay on the headphones to switch.

Here's the one I haven't found a way to identify without digging: threaded screw off caps. So I don't mean like a crown cap that you can often screw off (but in some cases needs a bottle opener). I'm talking about the metal screw off cap for like a 40oz malt liquor! For the most part (in 12 kHz) they ring up in the mid 80s (typically like an 84 - 86) btw a zinc penny and a memorial penny or dime. When I flip over to 4 kHz, they read as 72 or so. Sometimes I can tell by pinpointing that they are larger than a desired topic. But sometimes they are squished enough that they really do "look like" a coin. I'll dig them. And for the most part don't mind being fooled even when I see that suspect reading of 84 - 86, but there are some parks/areas where they seem to be really prevalent and waste precious time.

Anyone have any ways of identifying these without digging?

Thx!
Rich