Question for you relic hunters out there...

[bunker314]

I am planning on going up to KY, soon to hit an old farm that has a pre-CW mule cart path that goes through the middle of the property. Since I don't expect much trash such as pop-tops and screw caps...How would you set your discrimination pattern or go all metal and dig everything? I am down here in Florida and don't get much relic type hunting. I just started in March and seem to find coins most of the time. (mostly clad) Hit my 800th coin this week. Found my first ring yesterday.
Any tips or advice would be appreciated
Thanks in advance..

 

[geoff]

Go all metal ,also create an all metal patern in conductivity and save it,if you get a minus 4 up to 0 check it in the new program,if it sings high in minus figures its iron if its a low tone/growl its non ferous,small or deep.
Thats how I get the silver hammered shown on here (nice little silver).

 

[bunker314]

Thanks Geoff,
I am looking forward to my first real relic hunt. I have Andy's book but it doesn't really go too deep when he talks about the ferrous issue. He brings up the explorer but my Safari doesn't seem to change the TID when I check it in the ferrous mode. What is 15 in C is 15 in F etc. I will continue to work on it and do some more testing.
Thanks again for the reply.

 

[geoff]

Very often the numbers will be much the same in either conduct or ferous,the only big diference is in the below '0' readings, now here they display the same minus numbers,but iron gives a medium to high pitch tone in ferous,while giving a low growl or low tone in conduct.
That is about the only real contrast I have found on this machine betwean ferous & conductivity,and a usefull contrast it is.
Geoff.

 

[bunker314]

Thanks again for the info Geoff, I will definitely have to do some experiments in my test garden!!!

 

[TomH]

bunker314,

I am a relic hunter digging in the Gettysburg area with trips to Maryland and Ole Virginny, and how I setup my machine really depends on the soil quality. In decent soil I usually use a modified relic program with -10 through -7 and +40 scrimmed out, and use either auto-sens or manually set the sensitivity at a level where I am getting a minimum number of false signals. I have gotten some really deep relics with that setting and it minimizes the number of bad targets.

In heavily mineralized soil I go to all metal mode, low threshold and manually set the sensitivity a couple of notches above stable and ignore all the bad signals and chirps. In that setting I only dig repeatable signals and have been able to find tiny drips of melted lead at ten inches in the worst, traffic cone orange soil I have ever dug in.

One thing I have noticed is that the machine really does not like disturbed soil. Last week I was hunting in a recently chisel plowed field and was getting no signals. I went to my "bad dirt" setting and found two bullets in 15 minutes (a Williams Type I civil war bullet and a modern .32 cal pistol bullet), both at 8 to 10 inches. If I dig a hole and leave loose dirt in the bottom of it the signal will frequently disappear until I scrape all the loose stuff out.

Be patient, swing slow and dig every signal until you know your machine. Once you get used to the vast array of tones on the Safari you will be amazed at the information you can get from each signal and the depth of the targets. My record is a minie ball at about 20 inches in very good soil. The signal was a deep iron sound with a chirp at the end of the tone and a jump to a TID 32. It was repeatable in every direction and was actually found by a bud with an F75 who got the same type of chirping tone and he let me listen to the signal before digging.

Happy hunting,
TomH

 

[bunker314]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your input, I will print these responses and take them with me. Will do a little experimenting in the mean time. Can't wait to see what she can do out in the field.