Civil War Hunt Finds

OutdoorAdv

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I just got back from my first DIV hunt and had a ton of fun. Last summer I picked up a GPX4500 to add a pulse machine to my relic hunting arsenal. Prior to the DIV hunt I maybe had about 10 hours swinging the GPX and I sort of knew what it was telling me, but I wasn't really good with it. After walking almost 20 miles, digging 100's of holes, loading my pouch with iron and lead multiple times, by the end of day 3 I think I mostly figured it out. After about half way through the hunt I knew what those deep whispers sounded like and I was able to slowly swing through hard hit areas and pick out the faintest signals that had been missed.

I dug a nice sword scabbard tip, 7 GS buttons, assorted brass, and 3 complete dropped Shaler bullets as well as a few halves and a few fired Shalers. One of those dropped three ringers is also a Washington Arsenal Star Base, which is always a nice surprise when cleaning out the base.

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Before I combined everything for a group shot, I had kept my 3 days finds separate. From left to right is Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. Something I learned on day 1 was don't be afraid to reopen someone else's plug when I got a sweet signal, reopened a plug and found a nice deep musket ball someone had given up on. The scabbard tip came to me in the same way as well as a few other relics... however I also learned that people like to rebury stuff like shotgun shells back into the plug they dug them from, so this also backfired a lot, but the nice stuff made up for it.

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Sword scabbard tip, buttons, knapsack brass and a kepi buckle.

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Shaler drops, fired and incomplete bits of drops.

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Lots of camp lead!

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I got to hunt with my friend metalev4 all three days. We worked a small camp area on this ridge for much of the second day and had a ton of fun pulling Shaler bits and brass from a small area. We had a lot of rain, but the storm in the background produced a lot of lightning and chased us back to the cars for a while. I actually saw a lightning strike many miles away in the valley that made my GPX go nuts the second it hit ground :laughing7:

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That's a coat sized GS button at the tip of my pinpointer that just came out of the tiny pocket behind the tip. It was a solid foot from my coil, through the tall clover and dirt, down to that thing. I was amazed at the power of the GPX and it was the type of signal I learned to listen for and got excited when I heard one of them.

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Another GS button right from the dirt. That emerald green patina never gets old.

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Found myself stopping to dump lead multiple times a day to keep me moving.

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And the final spot for my DIV finds in one of my displays. I have some partially reconstructed colonial\federal era bowls below this shelf and I actually got concerned loading all the lead on that glass. I found a good website that has a calculator where you put in the dimensions and distance between support points and it tells you how much load the tempered glass can hold. Apparently this shelf can hold more than 160lbs... so I need to find some more bullets. :laughing7:

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One of the highlights for me was to watch trash pits open up and see what was coming out. I wasnt able to locate one of my own, but I did dig a few test holes and chased some iron signals without luck. Just seeing an insane amount of cool stuff turn up was amazing though. It was an excellent event and I had an awesome time and got to meet a bunch of great people. :occasion14:
 

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Oldhand

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Congrats on the new machine! and even more congrats to you and the digging partner!!
 

SultansOfSwing

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Wow. Great pictures and write up. Thanks for sharing.
 

Scrappy

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We haven't had a chance to chat since you DIV hunt, but I read every word of your post and what an awesome hunt bro! Cooool.

I must say you dug more lead than I've ever seen. I know your style and have always been inspired by how hard you work detecting. I wish there was a counter on how many yards of soil you moved while hunting. I'm glad to hear the GPX performed and you cleaned up.

Killer hunt and Post dude!




I must say those Shaler bullets are killer!
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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We haven't had a chance to chat since you DIV hunt, but I read every word of your post and what an awesome hunt bro! Cooool.

I must say you dug more lead than I've ever seen. I know your style and have always been inspired by how hard you work detecting. I wish there was a counter on how many yards of soil you moved while hunting. I'm glad to hear the GPX performed and you cleaned up.

Killer hunt and Post dude!




I must say those Shaler bullets are killer!

Thanks man! I wasnt kidding... I think I pinched a nerve in my hip from hiking and always having 10lbs of lead and iron slamming into me each time I dug a hole... even when I dumped it, it still seemed to weigh a ton.

I'm not well versed on CW history, so I may be wrong here, but I believe the Shalers sucked and therefore were disliked... so they're uncommon. The idea was that the 3 pieces would separate when fired... like an accurate shotgun with 3 slugs in it. However, I dug a couple fired Shalers with the top and middle piece impacted into one another... so they obviously didn't separate. Now imagine trying to pull one of those from a misfire or fowled barrel. 3 times the effort. Makes sense why they weren't popular.
 

CASPER-2

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relic nut

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Sweet hunt! Those are some great finds and a nice post. I love to feel the weight of the lead in my pouch. The average solider carried 40 rounds, and it's no wonder that we find dropped bullets. Especially if they could see the wagons. Can you imagine what a wagon load of ammo must weight? It's no wonder they bogged down. Thanks for sharing your great hunt.

HH, RN
 

metalev4

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Aug 12, 2006
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Great post Brad. You summed up the hunt well and made the most of some of the more difficult relic hunting conditions. Had a great time hunting with you. I agree, nothing like green brass in red dirt.
 

Bill D. (VA)

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Looks like you had a great hunt Brad, and glad you got to meet and hunt with Evan. Now that you got that new CW stuff out of the way it's time to turn your attention back to the colonial era. Good luck man!
 

CoilToTheSoil

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Congrats on a helluva hunt!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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Great post Brad. You summed up the hunt well and made the most of some of the more difficult relic hunting conditions. Had a great time hunting with you. I agree, nothing like green brass in red dirt.

Thanks man. It was a really great time and looking forward to doing it again man. Hopefully we can find a pit... now that I know what to listen for on the GPX, I think I'd be ready to roll from the start.
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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Sweet hunt! Those are some great finds and a nice post. I love to feel the weight of the lead in my pouch. The average solider carried 40 rounds, and it's no wonder that we find dropped bullets. Especially if they could see the wagons. Can you imagine what a wagon load of ammo must weight? It's no wonder they bogged down. Thanks for sharing your great hunt.

HH, RN

Thanks Relic Nut! I couldn't imagine toting 40 of those things around on a 15+ mile a day march... not to mention all the other gear.
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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Looks like you had a great hunt Brad, and glad you got to meet and hunt with Evan. Now that you got that new CW stuff out of the way it's time to turn your attention back to the colonial era. Good luck man!

With the threshold of the GPX still ringing in my ears, I think I am going to take it out for a few hours this weekend. Hopefully I can apply what I learned and replicate the results at a VLF pounded site... however I might be overwhelmed by nails, but I have a renewed confidence in this machine.
 

vferrari

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Man, it was great seeing you out there this week. Incredible variety and quantity of finds considering they were surface vs. pit recoveries. I think the importance of ground coverage technique cannot be underestimated. Typically two schools of thought if you have limited time at a site. Go fast and cover as much ground and different areas as possible or find some keepers in close proximity and then hunker down and ruthlessly pound a small area 20 x 20 yards until it is spent. I have seen both approaches work. I think the key is to have the disciplune to do one or the other. If you try to slice it down the middle, you will get the worst of both worlds. Locating and working a hut or pit is a whole different ballgame - I am talking about surface searching here. Thoughts?
 

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Relicific

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Nice relic hunt and write up.
 

Carolina Tom

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Congrats on an excellent set of finds!

Very well done.
 

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OutdoorAdv

OutdoorAdv

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Man, it was great seeing you out there this week. Incredible variety and quantity of finds considering they were surface vs. pit recoveries. I think the importance of ground coverage technique cannot be underestimated. Typically two schools of thought if you have limited time at a site. Go fast and cover as much ground and different areas as possible or find some keepers in close proximity and then hunker down and ruthlessly pound a small area 20 x 20 yards until it is spent. I have seen both approaches work. I think the key is to have the disciplune to do one or the other. If you try to slice it down the middle, you will get the worst of both worlds. Locating and working a hut or pit is a whole different ballgame - I am talking about surface searching here. Thoughts?

Great seeing you too man... Makes total sense to me. We found a few small areas that were just loaded with deep stuff. We would go over the same tiny spot and keep pulling more and more stuff from between plug holes. We also walked the​ property looking for another dense pocket. Typically picking up random targets, before migrating back to a hotspot. The hope was that we'd find our own untouched hotspot or pit and then it'd be game on.

Good luck the rest of this week man. Hope you get into something great.
 

joeyfresh

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Great write-up and even greater finds. When I first got into the hobby I was strictly hitting tot lots and civil war sites but the colonial bug has fully taken over. That being said, it's great to get into a good spot and dig CW lead and brass. I would love to take one of those GPX machines back to some of those old sites and see what was out of reach of my VLF. Evan is a fun guy to hunt with and hopefully we can all get together when he comes back.
 

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