Went to a local club outing
WhiteTornado
Posts: 2,102 ✭✭✭
The local metal detecting club sponsored a hunt yesterday at a park. They had a test area with some targets lying on the ground and some buried. My detector was fine with stuff above ground, but I seemed to struggle getting signals on deep items, more than 6 inches. For example, they buried a Morgan dollar in a ziploc about 8-9 inches deep. My detector didn't make a sound over it, even with the discrimination lowered and the sensitivity increased. That was a bit disconcerting. I thought the Tesoro Cibola (my machine) was supposed to be good on the deep stuff, 8 inches or more. They had a Mercury dime buried deep, then replanted it at about 6 inches. After they replanted it, my machine was picking it up.
The outing was "open play" so to speak, so we were free to roam around and hunt anywhere in the park. Some of the seasoned hunters didn't bother with the testing area, they just started to hunt. I was there about 2 1/2 hours, and most of that time I only found junk. Old style pulltabs and screwcaps, mostly. The last 20-30 min I finally found 3 Lincolns and a modern jacket rivet.
One guy found a silver Washie and a silver Roosie. Another found a war nickle. Wheaties were also found. One guy found a 1920s Wheatie that had been shot and part of the bullet was still in it!
Really neat item. It was partly folded such that it looked sort of like a toy soldier's helmet. The organizer told me that last year, someone in the group found a Large Cent. So, the good stuff is there in that park.
One of the positives for me is that the park had actual dirt, which made digging with my recently sharpened Lesche a snap. Much easier than the half clay/half dirt mixture in my part of town. I was disappointed that I didn't find anything more than I did, not even more clad. I'm still on the fence about my machine. I'm going to the beach in a couple of weeks and I plan to try it out there on the dry sand. Maybe I'll have better luck.
Edited to add: forgot to mention that the red rubber grip on my Lesche also came loose, so that didn't help my day. I was just doing some searches and apparently you can reattach it with Gorilla Glue. Guess I'll have to give that a try.
The outing was "open play" so to speak, so we were free to roam around and hunt anywhere in the park. Some of the seasoned hunters didn't bother with the testing area, they just started to hunt. I was there about 2 1/2 hours, and most of that time I only found junk. Old style pulltabs and screwcaps, mostly. The last 20-30 min I finally found 3 Lincolns and a modern jacket rivet.
One guy found a silver Washie and a silver Roosie. Another found a war nickle. Wheaties were also found. One guy found a 1920s Wheatie that had been shot and part of the bullet was still in it!
Really neat item. It was partly folded such that it looked sort of like a toy soldier's helmet. The organizer told me that last year, someone in the group found a Large Cent. So, the good stuff is there in that park.One of the positives for me is that the park had actual dirt, which made digging with my recently sharpened Lesche a snap. Much easier than the half clay/half dirt mixture in my part of town. I was disappointed that I didn't find anything more than I did, not even more clad. I'm still on the fence about my machine. I'm going to the beach in a couple of weeks and I plan to try it out there on the dry sand. Maybe I'll have better luck.
Edited to add: forgot to mention that the red rubber grip on my Lesche also came loose, so that didn't help my day. I was just doing some searches and apparently you can reattach it with Gorilla Glue. Guess I'll have to give that a try.
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Rumor has it that a used e-trac may soon be for sale if you're interested...at good price too! :-)
<< <i>It was good to get out and test how your machine performs for coins at varying depths. Sounds like this park has a lot of history. Was the soil dry? Dry soil can kill some depth. Damp or soaked soil can help it.
Rumor has it that a used e-trac may soon be for sale if you're interested...at good price too! :-) >>
I'd say the soil was slightly damp, no issues with it being dry. I'm sure that e-trac is a fine machine but also pretty sure it's beyond my price range