Folks,
I'm back from DIV XIV, three days of digging in the red rust that they call dirt in Culpeper VA and I have to say the Safari handled it beyond expectations! We dug around Hansbrough Ridge and Cole's Hill, found a 2nd Corps camp site and most of the diggers settled in for some serious hut digging. The huts were the deepest that anyone has seen and once you got down about 5 feet the yield was beyond belief. More intact bottles than you could image including some incredibly rare styles. Hundreds of buttons (including the remains of an Officer's great coat and an enlisted man's coat in the same hut!), a few corps badges, uncountable knapsack parts and more than 1000 bullets.
The surface hunters didn't do as well as the hut diggers. The accepted fact is that only Pulse Induction machines will work there because all the relics less than 8 inches down have already been recovered and that red dirt seriously limits the depth of the VLF machines. Well, let me tell you, the Safari reached down almost as far as the PI machines!!! I spent part of Saturday and Sunday with two gentlemen that are lifelong Minelab guys and learned more about my machine than in the year and a half that I have owned it.
Brass still sounded like brass and I got a couple of knapsack rivets (about 8-10 inches), a tent grommet (8 inches) and a complete Epaulette turnbuckle that was at least 8 inches down and rang like it was on the surface. Lead was another thing altogether. Bullets more than 8 inches down sounded terrible and the TID numbers were all over the place. However, once I got used to the "everything you know is wrong" situation I realized what deep lead sounded like and on Sunday I found two small drips of melted lead, both at 10 inches and both in some of the worst, reddest soil on the site. On one target I asked a White's TDI user (the preferred machine for Culpeper) to check a signal and he reported that he could barely hear it but thought it might be lead. I dug it, and sure enough a 1/2 inch by 3/4 inch piece of melted lead, at least 10 inches down in traffic cone red dirt, which caused the TDI user to exclaim "Damn, that machine sure does reach out there!". WooHoo!!!
All in all a great time was had by all and I have to say I am starting to believe the Safari will work anywhere as long as you don't mind learning new sounds in bad dirt. Now all I need is a couple of cortisone shots to counteract the more than ten miles I walked and the steep VA hills I climbed.
Later,
TomH
I'm back from DIV XIV, three days of digging in the red rust that they call dirt in Culpeper VA and I have to say the Safari handled it beyond expectations! We dug around Hansbrough Ridge and Cole's Hill, found a 2nd Corps camp site and most of the diggers settled in for some serious hut digging. The huts were the deepest that anyone has seen and once you got down about 5 feet the yield was beyond belief. More intact bottles than you could image including some incredibly rare styles. Hundreds of buttons (including the remains of an Officer's great coat and an enlisted man's coat in the same hut!), a few corps badges, uncountable knapsack parts and more than 1000 bullets.
The surface hunters didn't do as well as the hut diggers. The accepted fact is that only Pulse Induction machines will work there because all the relics less than 8 inches down have already been recovered and that red dirt seriously limits the depth of the VLF machines. Well, let me tell you, the Safari reached down almost as far as the PI machines!!! I spent part of Saturday and Sunday with two gentlemen that are lifelong Minelab guys and learned more about my machine than in the year and a half that I have owned it.
Brass still sounded like brass and I got a couple of knapsack rivets (about 8-10 inches), a tent grommet (8 inches) and a complete Epaulette turnbuckle that was at least 8 inches down and rang like it was on the surface. Lead was another thing altogether. Bullets more than 8 inches down sounded terrible and the TID numbers were all over the place. However, once I got used to the "everything you know is wrong" situation I realized what deep lead sounded like and on Sunday I found two small drips of melted lead, both at 10 inches and both in some of the worst, reddest soil on the site. On one target I asked a White's TDI user (the preferred machine for Culpeper) to check a signal and he reported that he could barely hear it but thought it might be lead. I dug it, and sure enough a 1/2 inch by 3/4 inch piece of melted lead, at least 10 inches down in traffic cone red dirt, which caused the TDI user to exclaim "Damn, that machine sure does reach out there!". WooHoo!!!
All in all a great time was had by all and I have to say I am starting to believe the Safari will work anywhere as long as you don't mind learning new sounds in bad dirt. Now all I need is a couple of cortisone shots to counteract the more than ten miles I walked and the steep VA hills I climbed.
Later,
TomH
