Coinshooting

[Southernhunter]

Can anyone reference a good link or talk with me about coin shooting?
I have a Garrett Ace 250 and am just getting used to it really. I come up with a lot of iron & miscellanea but I know the coins are there. Do I just dig every signal until I learn the sounds?

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[Tom_in_CA]

Your best bet is to find someone in your area who is proficient.... and have him flag signals that he thinks are going to be coins. Listen to the flagged signals, so you know what a buried coin sounds like. You can also do this with coins you bury on your own, but sometimes recently buried coins don't sound the same as coins buried for many years. This is due to the soil pack, disturbed soil, halo, etc....

 

[Wetgreenie]

Can anyone reference a good link or talk with me about coin shooting?
I have a Garrett Ace 250 and am just getting used to it really. I come up with a lot of iron & miscellanea but I know the coins are there. Do I just dig every signal until I learn the sounds?

It also sounds like you may be in all metal mode.
Switching to coin mode may help filter out the iron targets if you like.

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Hello Southernhunter. You can find a few of my posts here regarding the 250. In short, I am against the idea of all metal mode in the beginning as it is recommended, at least in my area. There is just too much trash and things in the ground. If you want some instant coin shooting practice, put the 250 in coin mode, disc out the nickel notch and also the notch between penny and dime. That notch in particular is a bottle cap finder. That initial advise in my opinion should not be applied to anywhere like my area where you will hear 200 other signals for every 1 ring of a coin. How do you learn to listen for what a coin sounds like when all you are hearing is chatter that barely allows the coin signal to even be heard? As soon as you move the coil a few inches there is already another undisc'd signal cutting the coin signal off. Now once you know what to listen for, then it is possible to sort out what might be a coin signal in the flood of other signals.

 

[Southernhunter]

Your best bet is to find someone in your area who is proficient.... and have him flag signals that he thinks are going to be coins. Listen to the flagged signals, so you know what a buried coin sounds like. You can also do this with coins you bury on your own, but sometimes recently buried coins don't sound the same as coins buried for many years. This is due to the soil pack, disturbed soil, halo, etc....

I have a pal MIA right now who may be able to assist... Thanks Tom.

It also sounds like you may be in all metal mode.
Switching to coin mode may help filter out the iron targets if you like.

I've been practicing with the different mod4es and sounds, but I seem to have a hard time discerning "coin" sounds. Thanks for the reply Wet & Green

Hello Southernhunter. You can find a few of my posts here regarding the 250. In short, I am against the idea of all metal mode in the beginning as it is recommended, at least in my area. There is just too much trash and things in the ground. If you want some instant coin shooting practice, put the 250 in coin mode, disc out the nickel notch and also the notch between penny and dime. That notch in particular is a bottle cap finder. That initial advise in my opinion should not be applied to anywhere like my area where you will hear 200 other signals for every 1 ring of a coin. How do you learn to listen for what a coin sounds like when all you are hearing is chatter that barely allows the coin signal to even be heard? As soon as you move the coil a few inches there is already another undisc'd signal cutting the coin signal off. Now once you know what to listen for, then it is possible to sort out what might be a coin signal in the flood of other signals.

so that leaves .25, .50 & 1.00 active in coin mode?
I'll give it a shot, Thanks Ricardo

 

[Southernhunter]

Just tried that in a very trashy area but also very old and high traffic areas & didn't get a single blip.... I'll try smore... Thanks again for the feedback all!

 

[grinin]

In short, I am against the idea of all metal mode in the beginning as it is recommended, at least in my area. There is just too much trash and things in the ground. If you want some instant coin shooting practice, put the 250 in coin mode, disc out the nickel notch and also the notch between penny and dime. That notch in particular is a bottle cap finder. That initial advise in my opinion should not be applied to anywhere like my area where you will hear 200 other signals for every 1 ring of a coin. How do you learn to listen for what a coin sounds like when all you are hearing is chatter that barely allows the coin signal to even be heard? As soon as you move the coil a few inches there is already another undisc'd signal cutting the coin signal off. Now once you know what to listen for, then it is possible to sort out what might be a coin signal in the flood of other signals.

I agree wholeheartedly. I also just got the 250 and started off by going to some older heavily trashed sites to try to find old coins. I can not emphasize how bad this decision was, especially combined with the manufacturer's advice to dig every signal (If I did that I probably would not have gotten out of about a 2 square yard area in a day's time) This was highly exasperating and actually a hindrance to my learning of the detector since it was difficult to determine exactly which target I was IDing and digging.

I found that the best learning environment was a modern woodchip playground. There was far less trash which most importantly allowed distance between targets. Without the information overload you can truly learn the machine better. In the area I detected you could easily just detect in coin mode without discriminating out anything. Later after you find a bunch of zincs at the tot lots you may want to disc them out.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Great advice to crank the disc, at the start of learning. I know that as soon as any experts hear that anyone would knock out anything above iron, they shutter with disbelief. Ie.: "What about that $1 gold piece you might miss? or that tinsel-thin gold chain??" etc... But there are some environments where you just don't have that liberty, especially when you're trying to learn the machine. If a person only dug 1 or 2 coins per 100 targets, they would NEVER get the "recipe" down, because, those targets were soooo infrequent, that they would not pick up the similarities of sounds. Sometimes the best way to learn is to go to an easy place, where you can get back-to-back-to-back easy coin sounds (yes, even if it's clad) so that the "lights go on" in your brain, and all of the sudden, after the 50th clad, your ears are "in tune". Then you can lower the disc. to perhaps mid-range, and start digging the square tabs, larger aluminum shards, etc.... Then down to the lowest setting, etc... What will happen then is you will be able to discern what the machine is telling you on its TID scale, and recognize the iron vs lows vs the mids vs the highs as you're hearing them, since you learned each zone individually, rather than an unorganized symphony.

There may even be hunt sites where you would not want to go low disc, no matter how advanced you are. Or, at least, cherry pick based on what the TID is bouncing at. Places like junky parks may simply not be worth digging foil and such, so you may elect to go for the deep silver. Yes it's true that you might miss a gold ring, but if gold rings are your goal, you'd be much better off just going to a swimming beach, so as to have much less punishing ratios.

One time in my city, they demolished a rodeo grounds grandstands that dated back to the 1920s. Under the bleachers was hard-pan dirt, where for 70 years, people had pushed their trash through the slots of the seating, to rain down below. The trash would be picked up, but of course coins and individual tabs, etc.... would be lost in the soil. When it came time for the demolition, you couldn't move 1 ft. without getting 15 tabs. There was only about 2 or 3 days before they were to fill it in with fill-dirt, so we cranked our disc, and got hundreds of silver coins. Yup, passing nickels. The only other option would've been to pull our hair out digging tabs and foil, when there was simply no way to "get it all", in the short amount of time we had.

So with that said, I respectfully disagree with the addage to "dig all, lest you miss something". It depends on the hunt site, as to whether that's true or not.

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Tom said it right. In my own words, you need enough coin signals to tune your ears to what a coin signal sounds like, not 1000 signals with a coin signal thrown in there. Southernhunter, let me go find a pic of the 250 display so I can show you what to notch out to get to some quick coins..........


Here it is.........






Disc/Notch out the segments highlighted in red. The nickels will have you digging like a SOB, and most of the time they are not nickels in a trashy area. The notch between penny and dime is the zinc penny finder, but finds a boat load of caps and other crap.

 

[gourownway]

Just got my Ace 250 last night. What a great thread this is. Thanks for all the advice!

 

[Southernhunter]

Great replies & much appreciated!

I have a further question about the 250 as well. I was operating in that range the other day & got a $.50 reading so I set the detector down with the coil facing forward & as I remove soil I wave it in front of the coil & it beeps if there's metal there. Well it just starts beeping, bliping honking & tooting like crazy and I was nowhere near it.
It does this when standing, or on the ground and is more than a little maddening as I am not sure that signals are good as they are not consistent.
I turn it off, wait a bit and then back on and changed the batteries but that doesn't seem to resolve the problem
Any ideas?

 

[MD Dog]

I like Ricardos settings except I use the same settings in all metal mode instead of coin mode, I also use one notch more of sensitivity unless in a trashy area. I also agree to skip anything in the lower gold settings while learning. But my settings will allow you to hunt deeper, just in case that's your problem finding coins. Also where are you hunting some places just produce far more coins like parks, tot lots, swimming holes, public pools, beaches, just about anywhere people get undressed. Now if what your saying is you can't find historical coins then you need to do some background research and try looking in older home yards ( with permission). I'll try to keep track of this thread and help you out.

 

[mastereagle22]

I don't have a 250, so what advice I am going to give may not help you too much. What I did when I got my new machine was to take a small notebook with me and I went into my back yard. I ran the machine until I found a signal and then I would write down all the meter readings. Then I would dig up whatever was there and write it in the book. This took a little extra time to do but believe me it is worth it!! After about three hours or so I could find a target look it up in my little book "guess" what was there and then dig it. I found that by doing this I very quickly learned the good signals from the bad and I got to where I could look at my meter readings and say, "That's a zinc penny, that is a pull tab etc" You get my point. One other MAJOR advantage I had was that I have a friend with and XLT and we go out detecting together. I would find a signal I wasn't sure of and then he would run over it with his machine and we would compare findings. The good part about this was that it was like taking a test over our detectors. I also helped him several times as the pinpointing with the XLT is sometimes a bit wonky on really shallow targets (he once dug over eight inches to get a "silver dollar" his XLT said was there only to find a 1964 penny less than an inch deep 6 inches to the side of where he dug his hole. Don't know why the coin was conducting like this but it did and it was weird.
I am only one person but I believe it will take the average person at least 3-6 months of use to really "know" their machine. That doesn't mean you don't find things during that time you just have to become "one" with your machine so to speak. I also believe two other things to be true, unless you get out there and use your machine you will NEVER get good at it, sounds like a duh kind of statement but I have run into more than one person who buys a detector never takes the time to learn it and then sells it as junk or puts it in a closet somewhere. Two DIG EVERYTHING. You never know what will be there, you cannot always expect things to do the same thing. Some very shallow copper pennies on my machine will read 95 (top of scale) and be in the silver coin range. Why? Don't know and I really can't say that I care much as long as I am finding coins. I do not profess to be a pro but I can tell you that in a month and a half I have found 325 clad coins, 10 wheat pennies 1 silver quarter, one gold plated ring, two sterling rings and a LOT of other relics. Use your machine and you will learn your machine. Hope this helps.

 

[kevino1960]

Mastereagle has provided the best advice one could get (IMHO), learn your machine! Everything else is purely academic and useless knowledge until YOU know what your machine is telling you. I too have dug things that sounded like junk to find a treasure and I have dug a hole big enough to trip in only to come up with a shred of aluminum apparently laying just under the surface the whole time. Go figure. Well that is my rant, Good Luck and Happy Hunting... oh and Welcome to T-Net.

Kevin

 

[MD Dog]

Great replies & much appreciated!

I have a further question about the 250 as well. I was operating in that range the other day & got a $.50 reading so I set the detector down with the coil facing forward & as I remove soil I wave it in front of the coil & it beeps if there's metal there. Well it just starts beeping, bliping honking & tooting like crazy and I was nowhere near it.
It does this when standing, or on the ground and is more than a little maddening as I am not sure that signals are good as they are not consistent.
I turn it off, wait a bit and then back on and changed the batteries but that doesn't seem to resolve the problem
Any ideas?

Turn your sensitivity down or look for electrical interference like power lines overhead. also could be from another detector on same frequency, my wife and I hunt with 250s and find we need to stay at least 30 ft apart or we get cross feed.

 

[MD Dog]

Something I'd like to share with all you who are new to the 250. Alot of people here will tell you to learn your machine and until you do dig every target. I say Bullcrap. Discriminate everything below the penny, Dig only targets that are in the 2-4 inch range, and only dig when you can get a loud Bing bing bing, not when you get a single bing in one direction. When I first started with the 250 I quickly learned that when I'm over a good target just placing the coil down on top of the signal and using very slight quick wrist movements would cause good shallow targets to bing almost constantly. Also if you do this you can slowly pull the coil back until signal disappears, target will be directly in front of coil tip. Some people call this the waddle technique.

That said, I too believe you must learn your machine, but there are a whole bunch of other tricks of the trade you must learn as well. Too many beginners get discourage digging crape', with the method I just told you about you'll start finding at least some clad (newer coinage clad with various metals). Then you can take the time and gain the experience and knowledge to move up to deeper older targets. As you gain these two things you can the enjoy hunting the same sites you started at and seeing the deeper older stuff you missed as a beginner.

 

[Charlie P. (NY)]

the XLT is sometimes a bit wonky on really shallow targets (he once dug over eight inches to get a "silver dollar" his XLT said was there only to find a 1964 penny less than an inch deep 6 inches to the side of where he dug his hole. Don't know why the coin was conducting like this but it did and it was weird.

Offhand I would say there was some other metal near the hole - likely something he had discriminated out (foil, pulltab, bottlecap, deep iron junk, etc), and the cummulative conductivity for that and the cent came up into the 50¢ range at the wrong depth. That, or he wasn't sweeping wide enough and caught the coin on the edge of the coil and not the center.

Always consider the display the "best guess". There are millions of objects in the ground and a detector has 100 units and maybe six or eight "icon" ranges to display that information. Sometimes objects like gold rings and pulltabs occupy the same niche in detector lingo.

 

[Southernhunter]

I greatly appreciate your feedback and as time allows I am trying your suggestions to get to know my machine better.

About the random beeping, I too figured it was the sensitivity so I cranked it way down but that didn't seem to solve the weirdness (beeping) so I shut it off for a while. I am testing in a pretty junky area currently but it does this in different locations and under different conditions as well. Garrett says it could be the search coil, batteries, sensitivity & electromagnetic interference so obviously you guys are right on target in that regard but if I can't resolve it myself I'm going to record the sound & send it to Garret to see if it's normal or perhaps a malfunctioning board.

Thanks again!

 

[MD Dog]

Does it do it all the time SH, cause could just be more junk in the ground where you've set yor tector down. The magnetic field on theses types of coils extends all the way around them like a bubble, you'll notice this effect when you get to close to some metal fencing or another metal object even though it's not underneath your coil at the time.