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Took my Safari for a walk Sunday...

TomH

New member
Went up to the top of one of the hills in the Catoctin Ridge in MD to a pass used by the Federal troops pursuing Lee after the battle of G'Burg. Rough hunting, lots of downfall logs to make walking and smooth swinging nearly impossible. The Safari kept pace with the F75, MXT and Blue and Gray in the group. In about an hour everybody found one target each, mine was a sliver of a shot bullet that was about 10 inches down and a bear to find because it was as dark brown as the soil that it was in.

From there we went to a Federal campground on the Potomac and hit a couple of spots. I ended up with a fired .44 cal roundball, a .52 cal Sharps bullet, a melted chunk of camp lead and a 1888 Indian Head penny in poor condition. Everybody got a couple of bullets and one 1900 silver dime emerged.

I was using the Safari in a modified "Relic Mode" with -10 to -7 and +40 notched out, generally auto sens but from time to time I played a bit with manual sens. Seemed that anything above 16 threw a bunch of false signals. Conditions were poor, dry pressed, baked dirt so the top two inches were like digging through pottery. Once you popped out a dinner plate sized plug from that layer it was soft and easy digging below.

Weird thing was the shotgun shells. Any empties on the surface read -3 and rang like iron! Any empties buried more than an inch read either like a shotgun shell/button (12 or 13) or like a bullet (32 to 34) with higher pitch tones (not as flutey as a real bullet).

All in all a fun day out with the guys and a couple of nice recoveries. The only downside was when one of the guys took a nasty spill and smacked his face on a downed log! He spent the rest of the day looking like he had gone 5 rounds with Brock Lesnar but, being the trooper that he is, he refused a trip back down the hill for medical attention and finished the day using his one remaining open eye.

Tom Henrique
 
Sounds like a fun day Tom. I got out with the SE for a couple of hrs. Saturday. Found an Enfield with a few teeth impressions, front teeth at that. Also a fired 3 ringer. Messed with the iron mask a bit and dug a few pieces of barbered wire real deep. What I found the most of was chiggers!!! It will be a while before I learn how to tweak the SE to where I have complete confidence. The smartfind screen is a definite advantage.

Barry
 
Barry,

It was fun, my first time out in more than a month and, if nothing else, some spectacular scenery both at the top of the mountain and down on the bank of the Potomac. Deer everywhere, all does ranging from one about the size of my dog to some real nice looking fat and happy ladies. I drive by that area sometimes and always love the way that range looks and it was great to walk around on one if the highest elevation areas and look for relics.

I still have breaks with confidence on the Safari. I want to ignore some of the iffy signals but always wonder if I just passed over a Louisianna plate :ranting: It never turns out to be anything more than trash but I dig the hole anyway. At one point yesterday I dumped about 17 shotgun shells into the trash bag!

I need to learn more about the smartfind screen to see if it would be better for the type of digging that I do. Not that I don't really like my Safari but I am always open to improvement.

TomH
 
Onus,

Barry switched to the Explorer recently and the smartfind function on that machine is frequently mentioned by relic hunters as a great system to use. I was considering upgrading to the Explorer for that reason but am still undecided. The Safari definitely finds relics and it seems that the concensus of those that know is that the Explorer will not find anything that the Safari with a tuned ear at the helm will not. So basically, the main attraction for rh'ers is the advanced programming on the Explorer.

TomH
 
Tom is right. The Safari is just as deep as the Explorer. My Safari relic hunting settings were sens. 18, conduct tones, with -10, -9, -8 rejected.

Barry
 
That is some mineralised soil Tom. Thats the reason for the shotgun shell reading -3.
 
Barry,

I tried using a manual setting of 18 but it was non-stop false signals, all over the tone range. I had to step down to 16 to get a stable machine.

Woodchiphustler,

The shotgun shell thing was a bit confusing. The buried shells that sounded like bullets would change to an iron signal once I had them out of the ground. I didn't realize that soil was so mineralized, it was actually a light tan color and not the deeper reds that I associate with mineralized soil in our area.

Two things worth mentioning. On the way in our resident historical and projectile expert told us that the area we were going to had been documented as containing some Agar machine guns, used to cover the Potomac crossings. The Agar used a steel cylinder, about 4 inches long and a little more than an inch wide, containing the powder, a .58 cal bullet and a percussion cap. When the crank was turned, these cylinders fell from the hopper into the breach and fired. I got a signal that was really loud, higher pitched iron (-2, -1), and when pinpointing I could tell it was about 3x1 inches. I got all excited, sure that I had found my first cylinder. I dug down about 7 inches to find a nice 12 gauge shotgun shell, still filled with steel bird shot!

Here is an Agar cylinder from my collection: http://www.baymediapro.com/collection/cartridge_details.asp?BID=70

In the same field, we found a nearly perfect line of fired .50 cal modern jacketed bullets, like a WWII fighter had straffed the field!

By the way, I should have mentioned earlier that these dig locations were either public land where relic hunting is allowed or private land with complete owner's permission.

TomH
 
Tom,

We have some of that tan, yellowish clay down here in NW Ga. It is pretty hot stuff and will make a minnie ball at 7+ inches sound kinda strange. Around here you can go from moderate minerization to heavy with a few yards of walking.

Barry
 
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