NEED HELP WITH STEEL BOTTLE CAPS

[cintitomcat]

I have owned different detectors, xlt, dfx, f70, tesoro. I know when you run low disc looking for nickles and gold you dig a lot of pulltabs but when i run high disc 80 im digging good signals in the low to mid 90's that turn out to be steel bottle caps. Never dug one of these caps before buying the T-2. I really like this detector, is there a trick to knowing its a bottle cap? Thanks Tom

 

[Dave J.]

The T2 discrimination/ID system is designed to have a special fondness for round goodies like coins and rings and military buttons. And it works: many users have commented on it. Unfortunately steel bottlecaps are also about that size and shape. And the T2 searchcoil is DD, superior to concentric in most respects but DD's have a well known tendency to "like" shallow iron/steel targets, esp. flat ones.

Some users can hear a difference in the "shape" of the sound of a steel bottlecap, some get hints from the confidence meter and the Fe3O4 meter, and some have a technique involving sweeping past the toe of the searchcoil and getting the sound to break up. If you X over the target (sweep at 90 degrees to your original sweep) the ID of a coin will usually remain stable but a steel bottlecap is much more likely to start bouncing around.

The technique that works best for me on a target that may be either a high-conductivity coin or a steel bottlecap, is turn the searchcoil into the vertical plane and sweep over the target again. A coin signal will often get weaker and may give a double blip, but the ID will usually remain in the mid to high nonferrous range. A steel bottlecap, the ID will almost always drop much lower, usually into the iron range. The technique is a bit awkward but has essentially zero learning curve and gives pretty consistent results.

--Dave J.

 

[Elton]

Are you running disc at 40 ??? Some old "STEEL" Bottle caps will break through the Disc..if in fact their disc'd out at all. Plus their round "Sorta" and the t2 tends to up scale the old rusty round targets. Nice thing is..their not everywhere. So when hitting an area like that 'INFESTED" Just raise the loop up and if your getting signals 4" or more .It's a Steel cap if id bounces around., or larger disk object "WASHERS" usually.... You can play with the Discrmination and raise it to cut down on some of them.. The good thing is your not getting nulling with the T2 Like say a Whites that removed those signals...You will hear the silver and see a flash on the screen of a desired target..

Try 3b mode in tones......Bottle caps will produce inconsistent tones, or non repeatable tones and broken sounds Here is what the book says.. In 3b the caps read lower on the scale. Or search in dp mode the tones will be different.

 

[cintitomcat]

Thanks for the feedback i will give those tips a try, also i was running disc at 80 when digging these target. Tom

 

[Jay Evans]

I usually turn 90 Degrees re-sweep and bottle caps usually drop off or bounce around..... sometimes I'll dig one , but not as often. I've found that running my disc @ 30 has raised my nickel count more so with the T2 than with any other detector that I've used. Sure I dig quite a few pulltabs but ya gotta in case there's a gold ring in there.

 

[chuck ky]

running at 30 you will be hearing some iron and all the foil. wouldn't 50 be better for nickles and you would also get the power boost.

 

[Jay Evans]

Would'nt running at 50 cut some of the gold out as well?

 

[chuck ky]

i was just thinking about the nickles. the last gold ring i found was 55 and its was a large man's ring.

 

[Hombre]

I once found two indian head pennies under a rusty old bottle cap once.........but that was pure luck. I'll take luck over skill anyday