Help.. out detecting.. screw caps killing me

vferrari

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Jul 19, 2015
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There are just some things that are hard to deal with in detecting. Having more numbers on the screen has nothing to do with it and doesn't necessarily help, especially in this case. If anything, audio would provide more telltale information, though in this case, that doesn't help under all conditions either as pointed out by others above. When it is all, said and done, detectors like to make smaller, round objects sound great regardless of whether they are coins, iron, screw caps, gold rings, buttons, or aluminum ring pulls. Just an occupational hazard of the limitations of induction balance metal detectors.
 

HighVDI

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There are just some things that are hard to deal with in detecting. Having more numbers on the screen has nothing to do with it and doesn't necessarily help, especially in this case. If anything, audio would provide more telltale information, though in this case, that doesn't help under all conditions either as pointed out by others above. When it is all, said and done, detectors like to make smaller, round objects sound great regardless of whether they are coins, iron, screw caps, gold rings, buttons, or aluminum ring pulls. Just an occupational hazard of the limitations of induction balance metal detectors.

Well said, V. All comes down to how much you feel like digging. Some days I am selective and others I feel great and just want to dig it all. Or, if you have unlimited time on a site the dig everything rule works well.
 

SD51

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Question for everyone...

Do they still use Aluminum screwcaps on bottles or are they just on wine bottles? Hoping this relic isn't being replenished daily anymore!
 

ecmo

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Feb 28, 2016
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Ok since no one is stepping up Ill dig all those caps for you [emoji106]:occasion14::laughing9:
I'm right with you too as long as it's at an old home site, church yard or long ago picnic grounds and not modern well used areas. I have found gold coins right in the 57-58 range on my Whites machine.:yes: Now if I'm in a pre screwcap area and i get that vdi I dig it like a dog after a mole.[emoji1] sometimes if I do go to a park for lack of anywhere better to go than I skip over them.
 

A2coins

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Part of the Hobby no machine is 100 percent accurate or I would have a huge collection of gold and silver .
 

danloop

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Part of the Hobby no machine is 100 percent accurate or I would have a huge collection of gold and silver .

Yep. Sometimes it id's a quarter but it's a rusty nail, further down the path the id is the same and it really is a quarter.
 

OP
OP
gene the machine

gene the machine

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Apr 24, 2012
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There are just some things that are hard to deal with in detecting. Having more numbers on the screen has nothing to do with it and doesn't necessarily help, especially in this case. If anything, audio would provide more telltale information, though in this case, that doesn't help under all conditions either as pointed out by others above. When it is all, said and done, detectors like to make smaller, round objects sound great regardless of whether they are coins, iron, screw caps, gold rings, buttons, or aluminum ring pulls. Just an occupational hazard of the limitations of induction balance metal detectors.

V. On 12khz on the Deus, screw caps come in at 84 and copper pennies at 88-89 so I seldom dig 'em. What I was trying to say was that if Minelab gave us 100 tid's it would spread things out more. Sine ML doesn't and I'm in a trashy park I just won't dig 20 to 25.
 

vferrari

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V. On 12khz on the Deus, screw caps come in at 84 and copper pennies at 88-89 so I seldom dig 'em. What I was trying to say was that if Minelab gave us 100 tid's it would spread things out more. Sine ML doesn't and I'm in a trashy park I just won't dig 20 to 25.

Gene, just a difference in our detecting philosphies.

I know exactly what you are saying. Deus goes with 99 numbers, I don't find them to be all that stable at depth vs. Equinox's 50 where a stable non-ferrous hit at 13 means a likely nickel and anything else +/- 1 or 2 a likely pull tab. Deus will bounce around in the mid-50's in that situation. So pick your poison. Precision or stability.

Even with the stability of the Equinox, I do not trust TID numbers to be that consistent either with Deus or Equinox under all conditions. I listen for tone varations and screw caps just generally sound pretty good if not a little "hollow" but that is a real nuanced sound, so I will dig them. No way I can just pass them up. I've had dimes on Equinox hit less than 25, btw.

Play the numbers and the odds if you must to save your knees and sanity, but know that even with "precision" the detector can still get fooled by ferrous down-averaging or adjacent non-ferrous or target orientation. Good luck and HH.
 

HighVDI

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The condensed VDI scale is the last thing that bothers me on the Equinox. I can call targets with as much accuracy as a 99 segment machine. It's all just learning the machine.
 

ARC

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Aug 19, 2014
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Question for everyone...

Do they still use Aluminum screwcaps on bottles or are they just on wine bottles? Hoping this relic isn't being replenished daily anymore!

I know that several bottle still have them.

I am just glad they don't produce the frigging pull tab anymore.

Sheeshus.
 

signal_line

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Nov 14, 2011
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Gene, if you're like me, I get peeved when people just say dig everything. That's no help. I get the feeling these people do not work trashy areas. I suggest you get some of Clive Clynicks books and read them ten times. You might even contact him and ask which book would best help you.

That said, screw caps are louder than coins. And they don't give as good a signal. Remember you are comparing them to a zinc penny. Dimes are much quieter. Now I don't know a thing about the nox so this might not apply. The Deus has great ID on most caps. If you know it is suspect you can examine it more closely before deciding to dig or not. I still dig a few but most times I know i did wrong when they come up.
 

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civil_war22

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They do sound "bigger" than coins but not the deeper ones. Those can not be passed. They sound just like a coin. Like said above....especially the flattened ones.

Same here. We’ve got two old parks we go to, and them deep flattened aluminum ones, and the deep crown tops sound amazing. I’ve got the numbers down on what they come up as, but as others have said you’ll miss the jewelry if you go off that. Sadly you have to dig it all to get the goodies. One day I dug almost 30 screw caps, and about the same amount in change, but they all sounded the same, VDI was the same, and all was in the penny-dime range. I’ve had a few aluminum screw caps that were deep ring up as a quarter, but not very often.
 

HighVDI

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Same here. We’ve got two old parks we go to, and them deep flattened aluminum ones, and the deep crown tops sound amazing. I’ve got the numbers down on what they come up as, but as others have said you’ll miss the jewelry if you go off that. Sadly you have to dig it all to get the goodies. One day I dug almost 30 screw caps, and about the same amount in change, but they all sounded the same, VDI was the same, and all was in the penny-dime range. I’ve had a few aluminum screw caps that were deep ring up as a quarter, but not very often.

Yeah...I have many items up average very often. IHP's and wheaties are what come to mind first. I get mid to upper 30's VDI's at times.

I've just learned to use audio first and visual second and as another tool, along with pinpoint size and strength combined with the depth gauge and the signal itself. Using all those tools is especially telling on nickels too!
 

vferrari

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Gene, if you're like me, I get peeved when people just say dig everything. That's no help. I get the feeling these people do not work trashy areas. I suggest you get some of Clive Clynicks books and read them ten times. You might even contact him and ask which book would best help you.

That said, screw caps are louder than coins. And they don't give as good a signal. Remember you are comparing them to a zinc penny. Dimes are much quieter. Now I don't know a thing about the nox so this might not apply. The Deus has great ID on most caps. If you know it is suspect you can examine it more closely before deciding to dig or not. I still dig a few but most times I know i did wrong when they come up.

So you are 100% sure that you didn't leave a gold ring or edge up silver in the ground when you decided not to dig what you thought was a probable screw cap. Interesting. I've read Clive's books and he didd't teach me that magic trick. He teaches great audio interpretation and coil control skills but can't guarantee you made the right decision when you decided something is probable trash and decided not to dig it.

Yes, we are all peeved with hearing the brutal truth and that truth is no metal detector is perfect no matter how precise the vdi or nuanced the audio. You can't be 100% sure 100% of the time detecting if you don't dig a detected target, so if you go by VDI alone (which is what Gene was advocating and complaining about) and are picking and choosing what to dig in the very wide VDI range within which gold jewelry or the lower range of high conductive coins can fall, then you are going to pass on some keepers. It's the same debate regarding whether to notch out pull tabs that was discussed in the Deus forum. The only way to be 100% sure is to dig it all. Is that practical all the time. Nope. So you have to play the odds. That means you are going to win some and you are going to lose some. And there are two ways to lose: 1) digging unwanted trash (in this case screw caps) and you will know that right away as you noted and 2) passing over a keeper you think is trash - and without digging it you will never know how often that happens.
 

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signal_line

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All good and fine on a non trashy site. Dig it all for sure. The idea that you are somehow going to find a gold ring by digging every pull tab in a mega trashy area is just not an efficient way to detect. There's probably a million tabs and other aluminum trash in a park I detect at. Nobody could do that and obviously by the amount of trash, nobody has even attempted it. Not the smart or sane way to hunt. That's why I didn't buy a nox.
 

vferrari

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All good and fine on a non trashy site. Dig it all for sure. The idea that you are somehow going to find a gold ring by digging every pull tab in a mega trashy area is just not an efficient way to detect. There's probably a million tabs and other aluminum trash in a park I detect at. Nobody could do that and obviously by the amount of trash, nobody has even attempted it. Not the smart or sane way to hunt. That's why I didn't buy a nox.

Has nothing to do specifically with Nox, what I typed is as applicable to Deus as it is with Nox or any detector. Nox has nuanced audio just like Deus and that can be used as effectively as Deus to make good guesses about trashy targets that flash up good IDs, but it is not 100% foolproof and that is because even the best detectors are not 100% foolproof in identifying targets.

Speaking of 100%, I 100% agree with you that digging it all is not practical in trashy sites and you will instead have to play the odds and as a result you will be occasionally fooled just like people lose "sure thing" high probability sports bets in Vegas into digging trash or worse, leaving treasure in the ground that you thought your detector was telling you was trash. That is why I said:

"The only way to be 100% sure is to dig it all. Is that practical all the time. Nope. So you have to play the odds. That means you are going to win some and you are going to lose some. "
 

smallfoot

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lol... I don't know what machine I am using either...

I haven't had much luck finding anything with any of these...

View attachment 1792858


:P

I've been thinking about a how to do a recording device to go on the detector that you could play the sounds of a weed whacker...might keep those pesky park people off our butts...you know if there's work going on, they'll split...
 

smallfoot

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Sorry for getting off topic! I'm thinking no matter what machine you use, those items will give you fits...dig them all, you won't have to dig them again!
 

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