Outlaw and Rusty nails and other iron crap... Help please!

[Hihosilver]

Well, took the Outlaw out to an older home site, I knew that there was a lot of nails and other iron stuff like gardening wire, etc... So, I took the Outlaw with the 8" doughnut coil. It was disappointing to say the least. Now the ground is still pretty moist because it is early spring and we had a day or two of rain, so that may have had something to do with it, but, the Rusty nails were coming in nice and clean almost all the way up the disc nob, only with the the disc set up past the zinc and sometime even at full tilt, could I make the sound break up a bit.

Sensitivity was at set just shy of the red/orange zone, threshold at about 1:00, GB as neutral as I could get it (was actually having a hard time balancing yesterday, it would be negative and I would adjust and then suddenly positive, go the other way and it would be positive and I would adjust and then just negative, couldn't get that perfect balance pumping up and down.

I must be doing something wrong... Help please.

 

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[dirtscratcher]

Interesting. My vaquero liked rust as well. Turning sensitivity down helped a little.

 

[Terry Soloman]

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, except running your sensitivity (gain) a little too high in what sounds like mineral rich ground. Never be afraid to cut your sensitivity to 50% and work up from there. Tuning the machine is an art that takes time to "nail" down. Slow your swing even MORE, and concentrate on the signal tone.

 

[Hihosilver]

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, except running your sensitivity (gain) a little too high in what sounds like mineral rich ground. Never be afraid to cut your sensitivity to 50% and work up from there. Tuning the machine is an art that takes time to "nail" down. Slow your swing even MORE, and concentrate on the signal tone.

Terry, thanks for your reply. I did not think of this until you mentioned it, but the soil at this particular home site is "black", I mean really black. Perhaps this might be it. I will try and lower the sensitivity as you suggest. As far as swing speed, I contacted Rusty at Tesoro (as I bought it from him and he offered his help, if needed) and he suggested speeding up the swing speed to help the disc better do its job, so... Not sure which direction to go here but I'll try both approaches.

 

[Terry Soloman]

ALWAYS go with Rusty's advice!

 

[Welgund]

I hunt old homestead and railroad camps with my Bandido 2 umax and Vaquero. These places are littered with square nails and pieces of flat tin. I always use the 5.75 concentric coil and keep my sensitivity between 8 and 10. I do hunt fast also, overlapping swings several times. Turn your disc up until you start to break up surface junk etc. I use a compadre also ok n 5he really dense sites cause usually depth isn't needed and it's easy to swing and really good at pulling keepers out of the dense trash. 5.75 also on it with moderate to fast swing speed on all machines.

 

[atomicscott]

Well, took the Outlaw out to an older home site, I knew that there was a lot of nails and other iron stuff like gardening wire, etc... So, I took the Outlaw with the 8" doughnut coil. It was disappointing to say the least. Now the ground is still pretty moist because it is early spring and we had a day or two of rain, so that may have had something to do with it, but, the Rusty nails were coming in nice and clean almost all the way up the disc nob, only with the the disc set up past the zinc and sometime even at full tilt, could I make the sound break up a bit.

Sensitivity was at set just shy of the red/orange zone, threshold at about 1:00, GB as neutral as I could get it (was actually having a hard time balancing yesterday, it would be negative and I would adjust and then suddenly positive, go the other way and it would be positive and I would adjust and then just negative, couldn't get that perfect balance pumping up and down.

I must be doing something wrong... Help please.

Wow, sounds exactly like the Vaquero I had. Disc was nearly useless at higher sens levels. Not much I could do to prevent the problem. It was not GB related in my instances. I had to just keep digging rusty iron, or find a cleaner site

 

[Hihosilver]

Atomicscott, while I can't speak for your experience with the Vaquero, I am nearly certain that in my case with the Outlaw, my issues can be attributed to user error. The real problem is that I am still very new to the Outlaw and to One-tone metal detecting, with manual GB... It is forcing me to learn and really understand how analog works. So far all the advice I have gotten speaks to something I know I was doing wrong. 1) I know the machine was not well ground balanced (I remember having a very hard time ground balancing at this site, and the soil was very black with a lot of junk, I just need to take my time and find a nice clean spot to GB). 2) the signals on the nails were not good all around solid hits (so even though the nails were coming in, they were not hitting solid in all directions, the Outlaw was trying to tell me "not a good target" but I was not listening. 3) my swing speed over the target was too slow, not allowing enough speed to let the disc function properly, especially when we are trying to overcome that halo effect from Rusty iron. 4) my sensitivity was set too high 5) I was misinterpreting the difference in signal the Outlaw was giving from disc to all-metal.

So, "Mia culpa" ... I am learning and I greatly appreciate the sound advice people are giving me. But I highly doubt the problem is with the machine.

 

[atomicscott]

Atomicscott, while I can't speak for your experience with the Vaquero, I am nearly certain that in my case with the Outlaw, my issues can be attributed to user error. The real problem is that I am still very new to the Outlaw and to One-tone metal detecting, with manual GB... It is forcing me to learn and really understand how analog works. So far all the advice I have gotten speaks to something I know I was doing wrong. 1) I know the machine was not well ground balanced (I remember having a very hard time ground balancing at this site, and the soil was very black with a lot of junk, I just need to take my time and find a nice clean spot to GB). 2) the signals on the nails were not good all around solid hits (so even though the nails were coming in, they were not hitting solid in all directions, the Outlaw was trying to tell me "not a good target" but I was not listening. 3) my swing speed over the target was too slow, not allowing enough speed to let the disc function properly, especially when we are trying to overcome that halo effect from Rusty iron. 4) my sensitivity was set too high 5) I was misinterpreting the difference in signal the Outlaw was giving from disc to all-metal.

So, "Mia culpa" ... I am learning and I greatly appreciate the sound advice people are giving me. But I highly doubt the problem is with the machine.

I 'learned' mine for over 1 year, before I gave up. Still dug the iron. Maybe you will learn much faster than I, but none of my other detectors liked iron as much. JMO.

 

[smokeythecat]

I don't mind digging the bigger iron from CW sites. I was going through about 20 pieces of ration can pieces, now nothing more than 2" flat iron pieces, and up popped a large size eagle button. Under the two broken CW axes were 2 eagle buttons and the back from one.

 

[atomicscott]

I don't mind digging the bigger iron from CW sites. I was going through about 20 pieces of ration can pieces, now nothing more than 2" flat iron pieces, and up popped a large size eagle button. Under the two broken CW axes were 2 eagle buttons and the back from one.

That is a good point about digging the iron smokey. You don't know what is really there unless you get under that iron!

 

[Hobojo]

I seldom have any issues with nails, once i've set the threshold to hum and Gb to neutral. Setting the GB slightly negitve does not seem to serve the Outlaw well. Keep this in mind as you set up to search those infested sites. I find that if I set it to just before the 5 cent mark I will pick up a few nails. When hunting those really bad areas I will usally set it past Zinc. I will still pick up on large iron but can always tell by the "long tone" of the iron vs the short smooth tone of the coin. I have found that coins and larger jewerly peices will still come in just past zinc. My time with the Outlaw has shown it to be a great disc machine able to block out those unwanted peices and allowing me to pick up on the good stuff. I actually find that the way it communicates its tone with the 8" concentric to be better than that of the Vaq or Cibola with their larger coils. Try putting the smaller coil on it next time you head out to that site and see what happens. Tesoros seems to give a different audio respones when fitted with different sized coils. I have found this to be true " FOR ME ". These differences are subtle and are not always easy to pick up on , but they are there. Even the new RSD coil responds differently.

 

[latham]

I know this is an old thread but Im new to the Outlaw and have noticed its affinity for iron as well. It frustrated me for a couple of hunts until I settled down and really listened to the sound iron was making versus better targets. While it is annoying that iron seems not to completely disc out, especially in wet conditions, Ive noticed that iron nearly always gives a "less solid" signal than non ferrous targets. A lot of the time I can even hear it "spit" just a little at the end of the signal which is normally the dead giveaway for iron with the outlaw in my limited use of the machine so far.

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Hello Latham,

I use my Outlaw for specifically hunting School playground areas and parks for old / new coins and jewelry. I find this is where the Outlaw shines in my opinion.

GL & HH

Doc

 

[latham]

Thanks professor.

Yes, Im mostly a park/yard type hunter looking for coins and bought the outlaw to use while my silver umax was being repaired at tesoro. Chose the outlaw because it should get just a little more depth but has the same disc circuit as my silver. I like the outlaw but I think I like the silver even more still. Just too bad that the silver is fixed ground balance. The silver umax has such a sweet tone and its a super stable running machine in trash compared to the outlaw. But I plan to put lots of time on the outlaw this season an learn its language as well as I have my silver. I think I will use the outlaw mostly in less trashy areas and use the silver in the more iron infested places.

 

[pinenut]

I found the Outlaw to be very good in trashy spots as it has great discrimination, like the Bandido’s. You really need to put the small concentric on it though, for best results in trash. If you’re using it with the “widescan” coil, it’s just not going to do as well.. In my opinion, the two best coils on the Outlaw are the 8” donut and 5.75” concentric.

 

[eyemustdigtreasure]

I own a Cibola, and don't have to ground balance, but my Fisher, I have to.......
Find a a patch of ground that doesn't have metal (good luck!), and balance there...
Repeat-able signals are worthy of spending more time on (your) decisions to dig or not.