the misses 505 b.h. help?

[goldeagle]

my wifes 505 pioneer bounty hunter is getting all the clad she can handle and pennies,but she wants to get some silver coins ex.nikles old buffs. or whatever she thinks something is wrong because no nickle hits,can you guys reccomend a coil other than stock she has the 4in is this the best one thanks

[Sandman]

The 4" coil is best for trashy areas and it will find silver and older coins. You have to remember that the coils field at it's deepest point might only be 2" round and if you aren't overlapping the sweeps every 2" you are going to miss them if they are there. Just make sure the disc isn't turned up to reject nickels.

[George (MN)]

Nickels often ID as pulltab or zinc. On some detectors may ID as foil. With most detectors I don't even bother to try for nickels, as the conductivity of nickels & modern tabs is so close, they may ID as same. HH, George (MN)

[capt1989]

Hey Goldeagle,

I also have a 505. If she is digging up pull tabs then she will find nickels and some gold objects. Two ways to approach this in my humble opinion...1. search in all metal mode and then switch to auto notch when she has found a target. This automatically discriminates most "trash objects". Pull tabs and bits of aluminum will still be detected but that is unavoidable because they detect the same as some gold and nickels. If she discriminates out the pull tabs, she will lose some gold objects and all nickles. 2. She can search in discriminate mode and listen to the sound of the target and then switch to auto notch to eliminate most trash. When searching in this mode or the auto notch mode ( with the 8" coil ) make sure that she is over lapping her sweeps by about 3 inches because in these modes only the inside smaller coil is active... at least this is how it is on mine. This mode also automatically adjusts for ground mineralization, which the all metal mode does not. You can miss a lot of targets when searching in these modes if you are not using the inner coil exclusively. Best advice is to throw a nickel down, along with her wedding ring and a pull tab,(this is what I did) and see how the machine reacts to them in the discriminate and the auto notch modes. When trash metal is low in an area, I will search in all metal mode because it uses the whole coil and therefore gives a larger search area, then switch to auto notch to eliminate all undesirables except pull tabs and bits of aluminum and some screw caps. Experiment and learn to trust the machine. If the tone remains the same from side to side but changes when going up and down, then it is nearly always a trash target. The exception I have found to this is when there is multiple targets in a close area. Switching to all metal mode and lifting the coil about 6 to 8 inches above the ground will help identify multiple targets in a close area if they are small. If there is a large target, like a can or bigger object under the ground, you will just get a one big tone but it will be eliminated in auto notch mode unless it is aluminum. I hope this information helps you and your wife. There is no substitute for experience. Get out and practice. This info is what I have picked up from my 505 after 2 days of hard use. I don't intend to dig much trash (accept aluminum) after about a week of learning this detector.

Wishing you the best and happy hunting.

capt.