I think I found a new way to hunt in iron...

A novel...but if this helps someone out there find something great the way I am doing it here it would well worth the time to read it.


I have had a little success lately in a site loaded with not just iron nails but all sizes of iron and other old metal from large to small using a way out of the box thinking method I tried just as a lark.
I wonder what the community here thinks about this method, is there a scientific reason it has been working for me, am I just lucky or is there something here that can be replicated by others....or would anyone else even want to try it this way?.
All opinions, explinations, theories or even smacks in the back of the head if you think I deserve it are welcome.


Saturated is a word that fits the profile of this difficult and challenging site.
This was an old farm house site, it used to be private and now it is within the boundries of a public park that has taken over the property.
Many have hunted here before, the site became public somewhere between 2019 and 2010, and I know for sure a few MD club members hunted here, very accomplished hunters, but all told me they tried it just once, the amount of iron and other metal here was just too much and as far as I know all of them moved onto easier sites after hunting this site only that one time.
Me, I am stubborn and crazy, and this site is interesting to me because of the pretty neat kinds of iron objects I am digging here, old parts off of tractors, cars, and things that were in or were part of the construction of the home including some cool brass pieces like this which is a high tank toilet fill valve that dates from the 30's to who knows how much further than that.



I dig these large signals because I have found tools and all kinds of other cool and unusual objects like that brass piece and also to get rid of at least some of the larger metel to see if it is masking something better.

We all suspect there is still some older coins and silver here, I believe the home was built here sometime in the last quarter of the 19th century, but it is so very difficult to get through all the signals and make sense of them to find them.
In many areas with the densest amout of signals it is very common to dig a small hole and in that hole could easily be 3-4-5 or more small nails, bits of rusty wire and other pieces of junk, not to mention other medium to larger nails and garbage and also the huge metal pieces that could be adjacent or under any and all targets deeper.

My soil is actually pretty good, I usually GB at somewhere from the high 40's to the high 50's at this site, one bar on the dirt meter, and it seems the older coin targets I am looking for are laying at approximately the 6" level here.
At sites with similar conditions and good targets deeper this method may not work at all, but here like I said, I am having some success.

I have not tried a few other techniques here with my F70 yet, hunting in disc just barely knocking out nails and using 4 tone, or zero disc and using mono tone, they might work at this site too for all I know, but this crazy way was just and experiment I tried first just because I was curious and it seemed to work so well that I continued to do it for the last few hunts.
I also just saw a vid from Gene Scully and his settings for hunting in iron with the F75 and he states that too much sense, too much power can actually cut your depth in at least those type of sites and that is something I did not know or realize so I have much more experimenting to do.
Curiously, messing around with all the settings just to see different results, good and bad, is way fun for me, almost as fun as digging up those great targets, and I will take time on my hunts to do this still even though I might leave a few extra targets in the ground when I get sidetracked to do this.


A bit more backgrond on me so you will have all the facts.
My beginner experience was with a lower end Bounty Hunter in my first hunting sites when I lived in Alabama that couldn't handle the super hot soil there at all.
Falsing to such a degree on just about every swing that was something that a beginner usually does not or should not have to deal with but I had nothing else and didn't know any better at the time about other detectors that could deal with that situation better so I just used it for about 150 hours till I upgraded to a Vaquero.
The boot camp experience with that noisy thing was actually frustrating but also a blessing in disguise because I had to learn to listen, really listen, to pick out the real solid and good signals from all the false ones...something I am still thankful for to this day.
That training helped me in learning my next detector, the Vaq, also a Compadre, and then one day I bought an F2 just a s a backup detector and I discovered I could run it on full power and still managed to learn to tell good signals from bad even though it was usually pretty noisy at most sites I hunted with some good amount of falsing coming out of that thing too.
I was very successful with that thing, and when I decided to upgrade again I went with an F70 hoping to get a bit more depth, better ID's at depth and I also hoped all the language I learned swinging the F2 would transfer over.
Not only the actual in your face language I learned but the hidden, between the lines, language and behavior I discovered I could comprehend which helped me find more and greater treasures than I would have believed possible.
I was very happy to learn that the F series language does transfer between the different models although the higher you go the basics are there but there is just much more language to learn.

When I got my F70 I experimented a ton, still do, and eventually started to hunt at several sites like the woods and even some parks at fully blown out settings...
AT, SL, Sense at 99, Thresh at 9, and even though all the noise and jumping I could and sometimes did get at some of my heavier EMI loaded sites I was still able to pick out the true, good tones and notice the more stable numbers that flashed on the screen that wer good and not false...if only for a brief instant.
Still a babe in the woods with this thing as far as I am concerned, but the amount and quality of my finds satisfy me as does the depth I am finding them at which is sometimes surprising.

So now My experiences at this site.
I have been here before many times with many detectors and coils and did find some larger iron objects like hand tools and such, even a few wheaties in one area that were relatively shallow, but never any silver or older coins which was always my goal.
The F70 had its first visit here with the large 11" DD coil mounted, but I found that so many signals hitting this coil at the same time no matter what settings I used from low to high just made it an unintelligible mess and no love on that hunt.

Then I came back with the F70 and the standard coil mounted this time and for some silly reason I set it up to hunt on those all metal maxed out settings just to see what would happen.
My hope and theory was to blast through any and all iron and see if I could notice any other signals that indicated anything else but iron, and then dig down and see what I would find.
The first hunt this way was surprising, almost shocking actually.
I had severe jumping on the screen and of course in the tones, also, but I listened for what I thought were the more solid tones and watched for any and all numbers that were higher than iron and seemed t be real even though on every swing there were also iron numbers and those low iron grunts popping up continuously due to the dense blanket of existing iron.
My check program was disc at 1, DE speed, sense at 85 and thresh at -1 and I was in 4H tones which is my more usual park hunting settings.

Every target I came across that I heard something solid in that threshold tone and also saw numbers that flashed by on the screen that were higher than 15 and seemed like they might be real if they repeated at all and showed up more than once I stopped and examined further.
I pinpointed to try to get the center of the coil over the exact area of the target, the coil just a bit off center of most iron here would always false into the higher numbers so I had to get the coil just right to give me more accurate information.
Once I found that spot I made several small side to side passes and listened and watched the screen closely for those higher number flashes ignoring the iron grunts and iron numbers that were also there in every swing.
Remember every hole I opened all day had some kind of target but also at least one if not more like 2 or 3 bits of rusty iron in it also so the iron signals were always there.
Many times the high numbers I saw went away when I got the coil right, and the numbers settled down into constant iron numbers that usually stayed within a 2 number jump if that.
I knew this was a true iron signal and moved on.
I also examined each suspected non iron target from at least one other angle if not 2 or more.
Many times those higher than iron numbers I saw were still there but they had completely changed to a new set of numbers than the first, usually lower.
These targets that changed numbers as I circled aroud were never coins because the numbers were never that high, but they did end up to be something other than iron so I was happy with that.
Eventually I did get some signals that were the kind I was looking for, not many in the higer silver coin ranges but higher than iron and stayed sort of within the same range as I circled and I dug some very good targets that also weren't iron.

Now let me stop here and explain about these higher numbers.
On my F2 after hundreds of hours I made a rule for myself that I was good enough and accurate enough, especially using the sniper coil, that I would rarely dig any signal that jumped more than 2 numbers unless I heard something sweet and solid in that tone.
This worked well for me and I found I could avoid about 80-90% of the trash out there which usually jumped more than those 2 numbers no matter what I did or how I maneuvered that coil and concentrate on digging the targets that stayed within my rule.
Those targets were comprised of the other trash that came in solid, there is nothing you could do to avoid that, and the rest of those solid signals which were usually good like coins and jewelry and relics which never jumped more than 2 numbers if they were within a 6" depth level.

When I got my F70 I could not stay within this rule at first...so much more power and so much jumping I dug all targets that strayed way outside my 2 number rule into 4-5-6-7 number jumps as I learned.
Eventually I got more skilled with all the coils and now my rule is in place again and slightly amended to be a solid diggable target is one that is within a 2-3 number jump.
Anything at major depth this rule does not apply, of course, all bets are off on those so I go by audio info more than screen info as I do on most targets I come across whether they are shallow or deep.

Now these higher numbers I have been talking about at this iron site did not stay within these rules at all.
At no time on any target that was not iron did I get any sort of signal or numbers that were stable and steady at that 2-3 number range.
Those higher numbers spanned an area of about 10 numbers, and even that sometimes went higher and lower or in a different way slightly changed, so insted of looking for a 2-3 number jump I was looking for similar blocks of numbers much wider.
If I kept seeing them on several swings, especially successive swings, even if those blocks of numbers weren't exactly the same each time I still dug them and on that first trip with the standard coil, and after many previous trips here as stated with other detectors and coils I found all this....












A small frosted glass handle from a drawer or cabinet from inside the house.

A burner from an oil lamp.

A very thick plate made of brass I believe with a western theme.
I thought is was off an old toy, but I have found out since that the last person that lived here was an old authentic cowboy so it could have come off of one of his personal possessions.

A complete antique victorian vertical rim lock from the 1800's and no later than the very early 1900's.
These are the kind of locks that those skeleton keys we always love to find fit.

The prize of the day was this 4" long insurance tag that used to be very popular to attach to license plates long ago.
I can't find any info on this long defunct insuance company anywhere on the web, I come from Detroit and I never heard of them so I assume this is very old.


Hunt 2 at this site with this new technique was with the sniper coil replacing the larger standard coil.
Again I wandered all over this site looking for silver, I used the same method as before but this time I was refreshed and decided to dig the more interesting iron signals too.







Some nice buckles, some odd and end iron you find on farms, and a very rusty small pocket knife were some of the keepers for that day.


Near the end of that hunt I wandered over to what I now know to be the front lawn of the property at an area close to the street.
This is where I got a signal with of ocourse iron bouncing in and out but this one also had some higher numbers I have not seen before.
That block of numbers mostly repeated from all angles, they did change slightly as I moved around the area with the coil but they usually stayed in the range between the high 70's and the mid to high 80's on the F70.

Copper cents and dimes on the F70 are usually in the 70-75 range, quarters would be more like 85, halves would probably be in the high 80's to low 90's and silver dollars which I would assume to come in at the low to mid 90's.

This block of numbers was in the high coin range, they did repeat enough from a few directions and I didn't think they were false high numbers from big rusty iron so I had hope.
I switched over to my check program and heard some very nice and pretty solid high tones and they didn't repeat every time but they did repeat most times and from other angles too so I opened a hole.
The depth on the screen when pinpointing said 6" so I started digging.
I got down to about the 5-5.5" area and scooped out som dirt and when I threw it on top of the little dirt pile I was building on the side of the hole I saw the glint of silver.
A 1917 merc...you could not take a picture of a happier man.
The Propointer in the hole says there are more targets.
I get up and swing the F70 over the hole and got about the same signal with iron hits and high numbers but this time the numbers were slightly lower in the 70 to high 80 range.
I dug another target and it ended up to be a pretty good size rusty nail.
One mre target to go and that one turned out to be a 1928 wheaty.






You could knock me over with a feather, and even though I dug all those other nice targets before and I was holding these 2 old coins in my hand from this hunt, it was still hard to believe this blast through high power technique actually worked in this iron mine.

The next trip I was on a mission to find more silver so I stayed near the area I found the merc but not a lot of time for this hunt and no silver, but I did dig up another pocket knife from about that same 6" depth level and it is in surprisingly good shape for being in the ground for so long.




Then I came back not soon after, I am lucky because this park is close to me so I can visit it whenever I have even a little time.
Back to the area the other coins were found, back to using the same methods and sniper coil and back looking for the same sort of signal and high sort of repeating numbers I saw on the hole with the merc and the wheaty.
Then it happened.
I got pretty much the same signal I got when I dug those other 2 coins a few days before.
Iron bouncing in and out, a block of higher numbers that pretty much stayed and repeated, but there was one difference in that this block of numbers were a bit higher than when I found the merc coin spill.
These numbers went from 83 into about 93, and immediately I hoped for, wished for, another small coin spill but this time hopefully with more than 2 coins in that hole with iron which would accout for those slightly higher numbers.
I even had a fleeting thought it could be a silver quarter or a quarter and another high conductive coin, but even 3 or 4 wheaties in the hole I was about to dig would have elated me at that point.
I again switched to my check program, again I got a very nice solid sounding high tone with those same high numbers that mostly repeated along with some iron grunts.
Again the pinpointer said 6"...all signs said dig this signal if ever there was a target I was fated to dig so again I opened a hole.

On the way down to that 6" depth I came across 3 small nails and a small piece of thin rusty wire of some kind.
I got near the area I needed to be and then I started digging way around the sides of where these coins were supposed to be...didn't want to scratch amy old wheaties let alone silver.
I was pulling of chunks of dirt and putting them on my towel at the side of the hole and then I went in with the Propointer and the signal was gone.
Evidently I already got it out so I started to run the scraping edge of the PP over the dirt and i moved a bit of that dirt off the top and then I saw the outline of silver...and it was BIG silver.
I grabbed it and looked and it was a walker...a coin I have never found before and one on my bucket list.






To find one with a date in this environment and for my first one ever turn out to be a half, well, lets just say I keep it next to my keyboard and it has been several days since this dig and I just can't stop looking at it and I can't stop picking it up to feel the weight.

So there it is guys, have you ever heard of anyone hunting this way in such an iron infested site or am I the first crazy person to try it and succeed?
Is there a scientific explanation for what is going on here?
Was I just lucky, even though I have now dug several nice targets on successive hunts?

I still want to try other methods with the F70 at this place now that I know for sure there is silver here.
I also want to refine and play with the settings I have been using with this method to try to stableize those numbers and tones even more and maybe make it a bit easier to recognize the good targets in all this mess.

Still, crazy or not, I consider myself a success at this site that has chased away several hunters in the past.

Never give up...Never surrender.
You can always find a way if you keep trying!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 08:24PM by diggwr27.

Good read, good SUCESS!!!

Yes I am very fond of HIGH POWER hunting in iron infestation...

its extra noisy but if you have the right coil and settings and tune your ear you can hear the nuances,,

Commnendable for you to keep hunting the site...

most places are left alone becasue of the initial SITE READ...and then is dismissed as too trashy or nothing old or too much work for the benefits...

you have proven they were wrong have you not?

And at the same time benefitted from learning on your own settings and Ideas.. and as time develops and goes on keep the attitude of taking chances and thinking outside the box....
go down a different path and you will have different results than the masses!!!

Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 08:51PM by Keith Southern.

Well thanks Keith!
Most other F70 owners that I have discussions with on other forums can't believe the high power settings I usually hunt with.
To do that in a site filled with so much junk sounded insane to me too...till I tried it.
Nothing ventured nothing gained.

Glad to know other crazy people out there have tried this method.

If you can ever find you a site full of iron that is no longer producing finds....do some testing with your f70 on sens levels.. set it on like 50 and hunt then 70 then 90 then 99..see if any finds come to light and at what sens it happens...

on the T2 I make some finds in dead sites but I have to be on 99 sens for it to happen..

now all machines cant accomplish this but a tight DD coupled with a fast pocessor is allowing you to peek between the targets and get the slight hits that only fast recovery will allow...

use whatever works for whatever machine you are running...

Remember the commercial years ago that said this isnt your fathers Oldsmobile...

Well This isnt your fathers metal detector..LOL!!!

Keith



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2014 08:52PM by Keith Southern.

Fun to read and congratulations on some really good finds. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Listen to Keith, he is one of the best in hunting iron saturated sites...Stuart

Nice job working in the iron you will learn a lot about the machine you use by doing this. I ran hot in iron all the time when I used the F75. It seemed to see through the iron better when running hot versus tamed. You will pick up the suttle sounds that your looking for next to the iron. I ran monotone or 2 tone most of the time. Now my Etrac you could not run hot. It seemed to have more wrap when I tried to push it plus it isn't really designed for the dense iron sites.
I currently use the v3i and I'Am experimenting running in correlate mode with nothing disc out. I'Am setting some of the tones to zero(less hear fatigue) on the low end and I'Am able to push the V pretty hard. So far with just a few hours in this mode it it proving to be a hot setup.
Again nice finds and good luck hitting those other iron infested sites. The Fishers are an awesome machines designed to be pushed on my opinion.
GL
HH
Corey

Thanks all!

Designed to be pushed you say?
No wonder we get along so well, I am "The Pusherman".
Which is also a great song.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2014 07:59PM by diggwr27.

Hey digger27,

Dirtfisher on you tube has a great video named" FisherF70 Metal detecting a trashy public park " It stars Bill S aka wjs on this forum, he uses the 6½" concentric football with some success in this trashy park, I was impressed.

Thanks, I will check it out.

diggwr27 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks, I will check it out.

Whoops I had a brain fart, his channel is DirtFishing, sorry

Got it.
I have watched him before...a ton of vids and many different detectors.

Stunning, commendable...... well articulated write-up. Time-consuming...... but well worth it. Your laborious/scientific approach is exacting. (Prideful, successful, tuitional). Watch what happens to this so-called 'hobby'...... from here..... forward........... with your newly-acquired skillset.

All of your questions/concerns are answered on this forum in the thread titled: "Rcpt Ack of F75 LTD Proto". You will find your kin-blood...... and soon realize there are many on this forum of whom are burning-passion destined as you.

I like the saying ...and i think it was Mark Twain who said It...

The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary...

It's true isn't it..the more you work at detecting the more success you will have..

Keith

Hey Keith----ya mean we gotta work at this hobby??? LOL-----I've been working at it all these years & having a blast!---Guess they call it "a labor of love"!-------BTW, I'm supposed to get that coil tomorrow--want to test it against the 3X6.-----Let me know when you receive the payment for it, I want to make sure it gets there ok.------Del

Sounds like an excellent location to experiment with the detector settings, and to learn what your detector is capable of, (if you don’t mind digging a lot of targets). And the location being nearby is an added bonus.

Congrats on your success at the "iron mine".

Detecting since Feb, 2010
E-trac with 18"x15" SEF, 13" Ultimate coil, Pro coil, Minelab 8" coil, 4.5"x7" SEF, Sunray target probe
CTX3030 with 17"x13" DD coil, 11" DD coil

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Stunning, commendable...... well articulated
> write-up. Time-consuming...... but well worth it.
> Your laborious/scientific approach is exacting.
> (Prideful, successful, tuitional). Watch what
> happens to this so-called 'hobby'...... from
> here..... forward........... with your
> newly-acquired skillset.
>
> All of your questions/concerns are answered on
> this forum in the thread titled: "Rcpt Ack of F75
> LTD Proto". You will find your kin-blood......
> and soon realize there are many on this forum of
> whom are burning-passion destined as you.

Thanks...and thanks to all others, also.
Got it, read it, the other compilations too, and tons of other threads you wrote.

I have gone back a few more times to this site.
It is getting easier and easier to pick out the signals that aren't rusty iron...I guess practice makes perfect.
Today was the first time here after a soaking rain.
I would have thought the damp soil would have made everything crazy and more conductive and harder to deal with but just the opposite happened.
Still lots of jumping on most non iron signals but there was a little less than before, and several of them didn't jump at all which I have never seen at this place.

I can't pull myself away from this site, you never know what you will find and everything I dig up, even the junk and iron is so interesting.
I have not found any more silver yet, but I have found a few more wheaties, lots of interesting iron pieces, tools, more buckles of all kinds and a few more personal objects and I am up to 4 pocket knives so far.
I am now setting a goal to find as many of these knives as I can, today I found 2.

I also found this return postage guaranteed key chain tag that is hooked up with the Disabled American Veterans.
The person that owned this thing might have been in Viet Nam because it seems to be from the 60's or 70's.
The amusement token might go back to the 40's...I wish the owner had stamped a date on this thing instead of just those 2 letters.
Same price for 2 letters or 32 letters so what were they thinking?

Just one more skill to practice, get comfortable and good at and to add to the arsenal and file it under "It Works".

When I was younger and I hate to have to say that..I could dig through iron all day..now its a bit different but yes you have to take the time and the noise to get a few nice digs and keepers...Now I'm wondering if you had a F75 LTD would you be able to even find more finds the real deal that are still hiding in the iron...

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

Lawrenzo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> When I was younger and I hate to have to say
> that..I could dig through iron all day..now its a
> bit different but yes you have to take the time
> and the noise to get a few nice digs and
> keepers...Now I'm wondering if you had a F75 LTD
> would you be able to even find more finds the real
> deal that are still hiding in the iron...


Don't know, but the F70 is pretty amazing and I am still just a newborn with this thing.
I manage to find a way to get the best out of all my detectors, practicing and experimenting and always working to get better on every hunt is just part of the hobby, just as much as digging up all the great things we do as far as I am concerned.

This method seems to get easier with practice.
I have been going back here on short hunts as much as I can and now I believe I can avoid most every nail in the place, most of the big iron too, and still cherry pick some great targets out of this mess.
There is a certain 1/4" piece of metal about as big as the Palm of my hand that still throws me.
I believe this was a plate that held timbers together or something like that, and for some reason mostly throws off higher tones and numbers with very little iron grunts like most of the other iron around here.
Tonite I dug one nail that I thought might have been a coin but that one had a large round top like roofing tabs do and no iron grunt on that one either, the F70 thought it was a quarter.
Except for that I am not digging much iron at all unless I want to.
The cool finds still keep coming, however.
I found two very good things today.
I am on my kindle now but I will get back on my computer in a bit and post some pics.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2014 02:38AM by diggwr27.

diggwr27-------I'm 75 years old & have had a knife collection since I was a kid--so I know a little bit about knives.------When I seen your picture of those four knives---my eyes immediately went to the second one from the top.-----It looks EXACTLY like one my Grandfather (on my Moms side) had & was passed down to me.---It's very old & I still have it--I'll pass down my knife collection to our kids one day.-------Anyway, your pictures (and post) is fascinating.-----Keep up the good work and go find some more knives to!--------Del

D&P-OR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> diggwr27-------I'm 75 years old & have had a knife
> collection since I was a kid--so I know a little
> bit about knives.------When I seen your picture of
> those four knives---my eyes immediately went to
> the second one from the top.-----It looks EXACTLY
> like one my Grandfather (on my Moms side) had &
> was passed down to me.---It's very old & I still
> have it--I'll pass down my knife collection to our
> kids one day.-------Anyway, your pictures (and
> post) is fascinating.-----Keep up the good work
> and go find some more knives to!--------Del

Thanks!
Love digging knives, no matter what shape they are in, and now I am on a roll and deep into trying to find some more.

Here are todays goodies cherrypicked out this this place.
A nickel pocket watch case back.
Philadelphia Watch Case Co. was the maker, they made watches like this from 1888 to about 1904 when they merged with another company and soon their name was taken off of these cases.







Early in the year I found a slip lighter, some call it a trench lighter, it was black as coal and until I did research I had no clue it was really brass under all those decades of dirt.
These have been around since the 30's, versions have been made by companies all over the world and the only thing missing is the top that is supposed to go on it.
This is the regular size pocket model.




Today I found the same lighter, but this one is the mini-me version.
I assume this is also from the 40's or so.




Again looks dirty and dark, again it is really brass under this dirt so a little elbow grease and she will be fine.
If I can get it apart and bump it out even better.

I have never been to a more interesting site than this one.
Every hole a surprise, and this place is not just giving up the goods but it is teaching me all along the way.
I love this hobby!

Thank you, diggwr27 for your very detailed post. Much thought and lots of time went into this, obviously.
Very well done and great pics, too.

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

Diggwr27 your post is full of great info and I salute you as an unselfish fellow dectorist who takes the time to help others who may not be as far along as you. S A L U T E .