plans of attack on old house sites lots of targets

[traviswells]

Just found another old house site to hunt i us the standard coil and just targets everywhere i dont have the sniper coil yet, i hope to get one for christmas. anyway there were just bunches of targets and i just couldnt seem to lock in on very many, the targets were jumping everywhere, or they would only hit in one direction, how do you go about not digging this guys yard all to shreds and getting most of the good targets?

Travis

 

[jasper12]

Excellent question as I have the same problems.Did you borrow my 250 and not tell me?
pat

 

[khouse]

The only thing I can say is wait for Santa to deliver the Sniper coil. Like anything - you have to size your tool for the job.

 

[NM5K]

Need to dig a few and see what they are.. Can be a variety of things.. IE: roofing nails, foil,
tabs, etc.. I'd try to get the easy shallow stuff, and just slowly clean through it a section
at a time. Try using a low sensitivity or a higher coil height off the ground to get the shallow
stuff. Then as the areas get cleaned up, start increasing the sens to get the deeper stuff.
A sniper coil would help greatly, but you can do it with the stock coil.. Just a lot more
tedious. The sniper is small enough you can go from target to target pretty easy,
and it's less prone to pinpoint mode masking from other nearby targets.

 

[Uncle Willy]

You need to slow way down and scan ultra slow in very short strokes and when you get a hint of a belltone hover over that spot and do the "twitch" to isolate that target. As was mentioned raising the coil up helps a bit. When you're in an area of closely grouped and multiple targets you can't scan rapidly in wide strokes like you're killing snakes. Always do the twitch over one-way or broken signals. You'd be surprised how many of them turn out to be good targets. Even if they don't belltone dig them. Many corroded coins will only "beep" and often only signal one way . I dug a slew of corroded quarters out of some soccer fields and I'd say eight out of ten didn't belltone.

Bill

 

[Uncle Willy]

Forgot to say - one or twoways to dig is poping them out with a big screwdriver ( there is a diagram in the archives ) and another way is to probe for the coin and leave the probe in the ground after you locate the target, then take a hunting knife or similar and make a slit down alongside and past the coin, then jack the knife side to side to widen he slit, then use your probe to pop the coin into the slit and remove it, then step hard on the slit and it will close up. Another method is to use a pair of long-nosed pliers to pluck the coin out. There are many sanitary ways to recover coins without digging big ugly holes.

Bill

 

[Da Yooper]

I agree with Uncle Willy, slow down don't try to do the whole yard in one day. If it's giving up some good coins plan hunting the yard several times a year. Spring time is a good time start your hunt when the ground is very wet and after heavy rains. Start with the front yard, in the old days that's where most people would hang out. Then move to the drive way side. Look where a cloths line may have been at one time then work that line. The back yard is where you are going to the greatest amount of trash. Don't forget to go around fence posts, and the biggest and oldest looking trees. Good luck and happy hunting.

 

[slingshot]

To go along with this: If the Ace beeps, there is usually SOMETHING causing it. In high trash areas, I have gone down to a sensitivity of 2 and watched the ID. It was amazing to see all the trash as it flashed on the screen-only now there were no overload signals. In one area, I was popping coins out right and left after I did this-but the trash icons were still floating all over the screen without sounding off. When I found several quarters that had been there so long they had turned red, and at 6" and at a sensitivity of 3, I quit worrying about being so low in sensitivity settings. I watched a guy in a tot lot with one with the sens. turned up and he had a hole over a foot deep and when I left he was still looking.