This forum has been discontinued.
January 20, 1999 at 07:46:23
Fired up the new Minelab Musketeer yesterday for its first real test. I took it to the yard where I had found ~100 .54 Minies and 2 US boxplates last October. Needless to say, I thought I had cleaned it pretty good with the Wilson.
Well, I had. Searching the same area again produced only 1 more bullet, and that was under a stump where I had missed it. The landowner gave me permission to hunt in his grassy area (as he put it, after the drought and then the ice storm, how bad could I hurt it?), and things became a bit more interesting.
As the Wilson still works if the head is not "bumped" real hard, I did a lot of comparing signals before digging them. My comparisons will follow... The total take for a couple hours...4 more .54 minies, a fired enfield, a dropped round ball, and 4 dropped Gardners (!?!?). Other stuff included a nice "Paris" suspender buckle, 4 percussion caps, a silver reale coin, and a silver ????? that resmbles a cufflink and is engraved "WR" (very old, whatever it is).
Moving to the backyard, I had hunted for a bout 5 minutes when I got a good strong signal. I cut a plug and started digging.....guess what...about 4 inches down I got the surprise of my life!!!!!! Yep...the power line to the shed (about 100 yards away) was very shallow and very energized. I literally got the snot shocked out of me....threw my shovel and everything. That was definitelly NOT what I expected to find in that hole!!! Took a minute to get my s*** together, I was OK. I checked the power in the shed and it was still on so I guess I didnt trip a breaker, I need to go back today and make sure the landowner knows so if he has future problems I can fix it (yes, I am an electrician).
Consider this a hard-learned lesson for everyone out there...when hunting yards be VERY aware of potential underground utilities. If installed properly that wire would have been 24" deep and I wouldn't have hit it. I went back and checked it, and yes, there was a linear signal that ran from the house to the shed. I just never gave it a moments thought but will in yards from now on!!!!
Here are my thoughts comparing the Musketeer to the Wilson: The Wilson is MUCH better at locking onto a small signal and not losing it. However, the depth seems to be about the same, and the iron mask on the Minelab allowed me to bypass many small iron signals I would have wasted time ID'ing with the Wilson. Twice, I had a large iron signal that seemed to confuse the Minelab, signal seemed to be centered but was actually off to the edge of the hole. The Minelab pinpoint mode seems pretty worthless, couldn't get it to work at all.
All in all, I guess it is a good machine for the price, heck, if it finds musket caps it can't be but so bad, right? I will keep trying to learn it and would appreciate any suggestions from anyone else using the Minelab Musketeer!
YOS,
VaGent
VaGent
Follow Ups:
Post a Followup
