What's your % of success in areas with nails/iron and what do you attribute to your success?

[garyflal]

I've been using an Ex II (my first) for 2 months + and have made some good finds with it at a 120 year old park that I've hunted since last winter with several other detectors. The park is loaded with nails of all sizes along with some deep large ferrous and non ferrous items. The main problem I've had is falsing, but I also wanted to know what techniques other users imploy at sites like this park. I've mostly used 'all metal', ML 8" and Sunray X-5 coil, manual sens 20, ferrous tones,and normal response. I've dug a lot of nails on iffy signals (ferrous & non ferrous mix of tones). The Explorer's tones are unique, and ferrous and non ferrous trash next to a coin distorts the audio response to a degree that it can be difficult to consistently ID a good target next to trash. x-ing or circling a target helps, but what changes in audio responses should I be listening for when I'm at sites like the above?
While practicing at home I'll place several old coins in amongst old rusty nails of vary sizes and non ferrous trash and try to keep the coil about 5-6" above the targets. I want to see how the trash affects the audo and ID in the following ways:
- How accurately can it still ID a coin
- How much do the nails mask the coins
- What responses do I get from one, two and four way swings
- What does the mix of tones sound like and hopefully memorize some of the responses
- What is happening with the cursor on the smartfind screen
- How pinpointing the coins and iron differ

I've had some success with iffy signals at the park with what I've learned while practicing, but to a larger extent it seems that laying coins and nails on the ground next to each other doesn't seem to accurately simulate how nails actually affect the detector's processor when the nails are in the ground. Old nails, especially old large bent nails in the ground are difficult to interpret (whether it's me or the processor) as iron or a good target as oppose to practicing, when the Explorer's ID is usually accurate and consistent.
Different types of ground illicit different responses. This park also has some hot rocks, has a clay layer starting about 6

 

[mattockman]

I will get back to ya tommorow.....Getting a little tired......just didn't see anyone trying to help ya....so I thought I would let you know I will try my best to answer a few....goodnight,,,

 

[mattockman]

One way to up your odds is to see if target sounds good from 2 diff, angles and if it does then dig....if one way sounds good but always seems good only while you are moving away from target and at a diff. angle it has the low sound of iron then trust it and move on.....I am not sure about the percentage of how many coins on edge next to iron I miss but I doubt its very many and I dig alot less iron this way. The worst situation I have noticed is when 2 iron targets are at the very Best(worst) distance apart and by turning 90 degs. you get good signal from one of them and a good sound from the other after turning....then at pinpoint time you have eyeballed the suspected point on ground and it is not where you thought it was.....IRON!!!!!! IRON!!!

If you have hot rocks and or unstable grounds with lots of falsing......turn deep off and try to keep sens. up as high as possible for a better depth and audio sound.....find a happy medium with it.....if things are not that deep maybe lower sens. is fine but when thay start to get 5-6" you need higher sens. to get a good ID.....I have had a place where 24 was necessary to use and it was a very noisy place but in order to find deeper coins it had to stay at 24. Exploerer XS that is....not sure how SE arangers its #'s.


If you don't have a sunray X-1 probe buy one....and you will never have to worry about not finding a target after digging.

You sound like you got good settings and you are going in the right direction.....

 

[garyflal]

Matt, thanks for the iron ID and pinpoint tips. I was running manual sens 20 with the 8" ML coil but I got more falsing with that setting with the X-5 coil, but only at that park. Another guy from AL posted that he was using high auto sens and it seemed to help with the mineralized ground. Ralph Sunray gave me some tips about dealing with hot rocks and how the Explorer responds to them. I do have an X-1 probe and like it a lot except that I'm still trying to get use to locating exactly where in hole the target is since the probe can pick up a signal almost anywhere along it's length. I have a Sunray probe that I've used with the CZ but it was easy locating a target with it when switched to all metal. I've tried using pinpoint with the probe to help hone in on the target but the pinpoint can get irratic at times when using it with the probe. Any suggestions?
Have you ever tried removing a piece of trash on an iffy signal and then found a good target? Some have posted that they've used this technique with good success, I've yet to find something good doing this. Thanks again for the help.

 

[mattockman]

The only thing I can think of with probe is cut a wider hole and use tip as much as possible...by running it in hole pointing with tip towards the side walls and work your way down in a circular motion spiraling to bottom...if you don't have a strong signal anywhere than you either didn't dig far enough or you got tricked by iron giving off false signal on edge of nail.....and it will be a few inces away from hole.....I have never tried using pinpoint with probe....I have never needed to but will try it and see what it does......


And the process of elimination works by removing or digging all targets and see whats making the mixed noises....just takes a lot of time...and if you happen to miss the good target and disturb the halo of it you may never find it till halo builds back up months or years from now......not sure on that one....lol.....never tested it.

If you have a lot of times where you can't find the target then you need to practice pinpointing more...and when a target is sideways shooting a signal to left or right of it even then you should be able to pick it up by checking the sides of the hole with the tip of probe.