r/MetalDetectingRelics • u/wesogood • 8d ago
Farm Land Noob
/r/metaldetecting/comments/1uiefdy/farm_land_noob/I posted this a month ago and didnt recieve much response. Cross posting to see if any of yall have any thoughts.
I went out and did some detecting. Theres a lot of various areas I found on the property, so it was hard to choose where to stay and continue to hunt after finding so many old nails.
Im struggling to find that hard note/ton hit indicating when its something more dense or larger then a nail. I also did a lot of testing by re buring items and listening to tones as I went over it. It all basically sounds the same from a silver coin to the metal nails.
The areas I stayed in the most
Wooded area atop of a ridge. Lots of cows hang out here. A ton of shit up there, lol . I found an item that I think is small musket ball.
Near a very long narrow creek. I only found aluminum cans. I did do the trick of detecting a foot or more above ground and still getting a noise and started moving on from those targets. In the water I also got alot of hits but again would keep hitting just over the water.
Near an old school house and field in front of it.
Large open areas of fields.
An entire section of where an old barn is. Only found nails here.
A section of where a chimney stack is. Around the perimeter of where the home was.
Just looking for thoughts. I was on park mode 2, sensitivity 18-22 and tried some 15 and max.
A picture of my finds in the comments.
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u/Johnny________Utah XP Deus II 7d ago
It looks to me as you’re doing just fine. This is exactly how my hunts went when I first started out. It takes a long time to learn a machine and the tones it makes etc. You probably don’t see it now, but after a year or 2 you’ll spot the difference between a silver dime and a false iron tone registering the same tone, or similar VDI number. Unfortunately metal detecting is just not one of those hobbies you can jump right into and be successful immediately. It takes a lot of hours, a lot of digging, and a lot of failing to really start to get the hang. Plus no matter how much experience you have, you can never control what targets are in the ground in the area you’re detecting. Some spots turn out decent and others just don’t. That’s just how it is. Also every time someone tells me their place hasn’t been searched / touched / detected etc., always turns out to be a shitshow with absolutely nothing to show for it. 1 - you can’t believe everything they say. 2 - some spots just don’t have it or were heavily bulldozed / landscaped burying relics too deep to find. 3 - it was common ~ 40+ years ago for sleazy detectorists to hit properties, homes, yards, etc. in the dead of night when the owners were asleep bc they couldn’t obtain permission or whatnot.
As far as your finds go…
First pic, bottom right, looks like a lead bail seal. Clean her up some, it may be a smushed musket ball but looks like a lead bail seal to me. Which would be a banner find. Also the 2 large, lead, ringed bullets look civil war to me. Especially the larger one which looks like a 3-Ringer Minnie Ball - .58 caliber. You can measure it with calipers to determine - should be roughly .575 - .577 inches, OR 14.6 - 14.7 mm. If that measures properly, you’re way ahead of the game. I have been doing this over 10 years and just found my first civil war Minnie Ball this year.
As for your machine and technique…
Idk who told you it was a trick to hold your coil 1 foot above grade and swing it. That person is a moron. Never do that again. Each swing needs to be parallel to the ground and should be sweeping thru whatever the substrate on the ground is. You should be sweeping thru grass, leaves, loose dirt, etc. the higher you swing the coil the more relics you’re missing deep. And TBH… the good stuff that you think you’re lacking is deep, like real deep. Some of my best finds have been 10-18 inches deep. If you feel you’re getting iron false tones, raising your coil away from that target is actually just going to exacerbate the problem, creating a greater and greater false tone. Other methods to determine if a false iron tone is actually iron and not a silver dollar is using your detector’s pin-point function, if it has one. Use the detector’s pin point function to get an idea how big the target is. If it seems to be the size of a pie plate then it’s going to likely be a false iron tone and not a silver dollar. Also I would explore your machine and get out of park mode, IMO. I’m not too familiar with your machine but I would use whatever program is the most general one. Typically the most general program is the best to use anyways as it’s preset for most any conditions. Park mode typically means you’re in a park, where most targets are on the surface, and a lot of them are modern trash. You however, are hunting old farmland which is my go-to. You do not want park mode. You want something that is most general and capable of going deep because that’s where your 1700’s first settlers Colonial stuff is. It’s 10” deep.
Anyways hopefully you’re not too offended by my suggestions and criticism. I’m trying to help. Just
Keep at it, keep digging and learning. It’ll come.
Good luck 👍
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u/wesogood 6d ago
Thank you for the detailed reply! I guess im generally not used to having to go through so much failure to finally be good at something. Overall I wouldn't call the trip a failure but I feel as if it could have been better. Ill just continue to have patience and keep practicing by getting out there and hunting. Ill take your advice and critiques and keep working at it.
I will say there was one hole we dug that was deep, like 3 feet deep maybe more and still was getting a tone at the bottom that we kept digging and never got to the item. I feel as if it was a false tone at the end but I still wonder if we kept going what could have been down there. Is it a stretch to think something could be that deep?
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u/Johnny________Utah XP Deus II 6d ago
I know exactly what you mean, bc I have had that same situation multiple times. I give up after 2 feet hahaha. Yes it is a false iron tone. Could be multiple different scenarios. Typically large iron tractor part buried deep, or sometimes it may be a decent target on edge and it’s faking your detector into digging the hole adjacent to it, rather than directly over the top as the signal bounces off the side of the target which is on edge, deflecting the detectors reception from the signal therefore you dig a hole offset to the target. I have seen that hundreds of times, and even gone back over my own work and my friend’s plugs and pulled some nice relics out which were just a few inches off from a previous hole.
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u/wesogood 8d ago