What is your favorite tools for bottle pit digging?

[metal80]

Mine I would say the initial 3-4 feet I would use a Predatortool Big Red 300, the pointed. For scoping out the soil I standard dirt shovel from a department store works fine. And lastly I use a model 85 and a raptor for getting around the bottle. Sometimes I use a handpick. Finding lots of iron with a metal detector is the trick for me to find the pit itself, but thats slightly off my own topic! But my beast will always be http://www.predatortools.com/item_details.asp?ID=59

What tools you guys use for ultra deep bottle pit digging? Besides a back-hoe!

[ZINCLID]

I used to bottle dig regularly and one of the tools that we used regularly was one of those cheap nylon or plastic claw type of garden trowels-you know the ones that look like a three- tined rake about ten inches or so long. They have a hollow handle with an end cap on end. Take end cap off and then shove the hollow handle tube onto a broom handle or dowel of the appropriate size. The handle can be between two feet and five feet long (As you prefer). What they are used for is to scratch and scrape the walls of dirt and debris of a bottle pit or bottle dump. When a bottle is seen, the scratcher can scratch around bottle gently to keep it from breaking as you remove it. Of course theis doesn't always turn out successful and bottles break on you--I've found all sorts of bottles by scratching walls of dump in holes, etc. This method keeps you from having to use your hands to scrape and it really scratches out small finds like marbles, old porcelain doll parts, all sorts of stuff--and one of the best tools you can use is a sifter...all kinds of small items like coins, buttons, marbles can be sifted out of pit debris--I LOVE TO SIFT THAT OLD DIRT!-HA!

[metal80]

I like the ground probe do you have a web site on that?