Possible ford with Ace 250. HELP!

[Heston83]

I'm new to MDing. By new, I just installed my second set of batteries into my first detector, an Ace 250..

I have been doing much research and live in an area with history dating back to early 1800s. During a recent hunt in a small stream I have found about 30-35 horse/mule shoes, and parts of shoes as well as tons of other iron. Bedrock is visible in some places, so I'm assuming that I may have a ford, or maybe old bridge?

Either way, I'm growing frustrated with my Ace going crazy on the iron, and telling me that silver is EVERYWHERE. Is there anything I can do aside from spending more $ on an upgraded detector? I'm thinking I may simply dig every single target, but.. Ugh.

Thank you in advance for any tips and advice! So far I'm loving my new hobby!


Ps. Found my first buffalo nickel last sat. Now I'm REALLY addicted. Haha

 

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[jdsly]

Welcome to the addiction. I have an ace 350. When in a place with lots of big iron it gets hard to distinguish it from "good targets". I found that with more practice i was able to tell good from bad targets just by how detector acts/sounds

 

[Heston83]

Did you dig every target during your learning phase trying to weed out the iron? I have a sneaking suspicion that I may be skipping potentially good stuff because it sounds too much like a hunk of red metal..

 

[Normsel]

The 1st month I had my Ace 250 I was wore out from digging junk but the more I used it I learned what to dig and what not to dig. If you're digging relics it's great. One more thing lots of times rusty iron will ring up as silver. I have noticed that more with iron than steel.

 

[cactusrat]

Notch out what you don’t what to find. Yes, you may miss “good” targets by notching out. That’s just the way it is. You can’t have cake and eat it too. You will end up with no cake.

Digging ever target is the only way you are doing to learn what your metal detector is telling you. After a couple of hundred of hours, you will be able (more or less) to tell what the target might be.

Find a cleaner place to hunt until you gain some more experience on reading your detector.

I hunt in all metal and I dig every strong target. But where I hunt, any buried metal is far and few in between.

 

[SusanMN]

In every detector I've owned (seven total), buried rusty iron sounds like a good target. Don't understand the scientific reason why, but it happens a lot. If you have a good but iron filled spot, and the digging isn't extraordinarily difficult, it's worth trying to clear to get to what is underneath or masked by the iron. I found a site a few years back where the shoreline was littered with rusty iron landscaping pins and my detectors (I used three different ones on the site) all sang on the iron. I was emptying a gallon bag of mostly iron and aluminum junk three or four times per hunt, But I also found a bunch of turn of the century coins mixed in and under the iron. This was in a heavily hunted park, but apparently others had written this area out because of the trash.

So, no need for a new detector, just keep on digging.

 

[rlc1940]

The iron audio function on the atpro sure helps determine the actual presence of iron.

 

[Swartzie]

A good way to tell if it's a big chunk of iron is to lift your coil several inches above the ground. A big target will still signal with the coil several inches above it. A coin size target will not. Sounds like you may have a decent site there. Sites near water ways can be pretty old.

-Swartzie

 

[Hookedondetecting]

My Ace 350 sounds on 100 year old Iron just like silver. I think if you watch the curser and it bounces around to iron and back it is. Target width is wider too. Sounds really good on native copper too.
Coins seem to be cleaner smaller narrow sound/swing. Found an aluminum arrow and I could follow the shaft down about 2 ft by swinging, so I knew it was long and not a coin but dug because I was intrigued. Found plenty of Pig Iron too and expect to find more.
Last week I got good clean tiny narrow sounds and dug in two spots- Both were deformed copper metal jacket lead slugs from a 45 type weapon 4 ft in front of Grandma's house. Took a while to isolate them from the dirt too. Strange, but you never know for sure what your going to get.

 

[Heston83]

Well, I didn't go back to the water site today because I wanted to read everyone's feedback. I did go to a house (with permission) that dates back to the 1880s, and picked up my first Merc!! Super pumped.

Anyway. The tip about raising the coil a few inches to test the signal makes a lot of sense. I'll go try out my new knowledge tomorrow.

I am attaching a picture of a heavy iron ring of some sort that came from the water site. Any idea what it may be?

THANK YOU to everyone giving me tips and advice. It is much appreciated.

 

[Spectre]

Horse tackle. If I were you, I would just dig all the iron, there is always information to be had from the items in the ground. And there is always the possibility of pulling up a valuable iron relic. If you get a large enough collection of items from the ford, and don't care to really hold on to them, you can take them to the local historical society, give them the location of where all the items were found and any other info you may have, and they could possibly use that info to put together some local history/add some interesting items to a local museum.

The more horse tackle items and such I find that makes me believe it is a heavily used ford, the more motivated I would be to hunt in all metal, picking out potential local historic pieces for the historic society nearby, with the key motivation being....removing all potential masking. If it was a heavily used ford, silver/gold coins as well as jewelry and other possible valuables could just as easily have been lost there. The old iron can give you a good idea on the potential dates it was used as a ford. The more iron you pull out, the less masking, the more likely you will find anything of value that could be there if it indeed was so heavily trafficked.

Don't forget to check 10-15 meters downstream either. If the stream was higher or there was a heavy rain while items were dropped, they traveled a little bit before coming to rest. Coinage and other valuables going into the water were not easily retrieved, especially if the water was higher/stream had a stronger current, OR if the person dropping was part of a large caravan. You don't generally hold up a ford crossing to look for what you dropped.

Persistance pays off.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

...Looks like you are on the right path...Dont be afraid to notch things out in areas that it makes since...Like i wouldnt go to a City Park in ALL METAL Mode...if you are looking for Coins...then notch out everythign but coins.

The first 2 years of my ACE 250 Detecting, I only used teh 10c 25c 50c and 1.00....I found tons of clad and alot of Silver coins....Yea i didnt find gold, because i wasnt looking for gold at that time.

The one thing i keep in mind it...Im not Looking for COINS GOLD RELICS all at the same time...But the funny thign about this hobby is, im primarly just looking for Gold right now, but finding Silver coins still


Great Job on that Merc...took me nearly a Year before i found my first silver

 

[Heston83]

"If I were you, I would just dig all the iron" Oh man. That is going to be a TON of digging. You can literally see all sorts of iron laying all over the surface, but it lies in two relatively narrow streaks across the flow about 10' or so apart with the more heavily populated one being downstream. On the upside, I think that bedrock is only a few inches down. I may actually have to take 5 gal buckets to haul the iron away. It will be several days if not weeks before I get to the "bottom" of this one (momentary pause for pun.) I do actually intend to donate most of the iron to the museum, AFTER I have excavated completely. Don't worry, Im mapping and GPSing coordinates (my geologist background kicking in..) so all info is preserved.

Im looking forward to discovering what may be down there. Thanks for the helpful and encouraging input!

Ill have to constantly remember this while digging iron: "Persistance pays off."

 

[Heston83]

Great Job on that Merc...took me nearly a Year before i found my first silver

Wow, now that makes me feel a little bit better about searching all these hours and only having (2) 1916 wheaties, (1) 1923 Merc, and (1) Buffalo... I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong! haha.


"notch out everythign but coins" And pull tabs?

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

Wow, now that makes me feel a little bit better about searching all these hours and only having (2) 1916 wheaties, (1) 1923 Merc, and (1) Buffalo... I was beginning to think I was doing something wrong! haha.


"notch out everythign but coins" And pull tabs?

Wellllllll....Maybe keep the pulltabs..lol

Really thou...Im not sure what type of site you are at...But if its like a homestead...then i would pretty much dig anythign that makes sense..meaning that it gives you a nice clean target.

I hunt this old farm in Rio Vista every once in a while, and i try to dig all the targets in certain areas...most of it is just full of trash..but i have found some old things out there.

IF you have access to this place all the time, maybe you can just go one day digging ONLY coins...then go back and discriminate a ittle less...and keep doing that until you clean that place up.

And Dont eve think its going to be hunted out. One time i was hunting with my buddy at a football field that we have serioulsy hunted at least a 100 times. well, we were bored and didnt really have any places to hunt, so we met up there...and I swear, the last maybe 10 times we had been there...between the both of us, we might have found 1 silver...well, this day we were hunting Gold and right before we left...he finds a freakin Walker!....then the next week we go back...his FIRST target was a Silver Washington....Not 10 mins later I found a Walker...the point of this ended message..lol..is that a place is never REALLY hunted out.

 

[Heston83]

IF you have access to this place all the time, maybe you can just go one day digging ONLY coins...then go back and discriminate a ittle less...and keep doing that until you clean that place up.

Im just scared to miss that nice fat gold ring.. lol.



A note on the water site; I am currently looking at an 1891 map, and this crossing (be it a ford, or bridge) does not appear. I know this is significant in some way, but Im hesitant to say for sure with my limited experience in such research. Could it be that this crossing was out of use before 1891? Or maybe it just never was an "official" crossing therefore never making the cartographer's cut? I dont know. What's your opinion?

1891 is the oldest map I can find so far.

 

[toe2short]

I have a minelab safari and i still dig up iron and flip tops that reads silver. I find that if it is something as large as a horse shoe it will read like a silver dime. Listen to the audio, you will learn to hear the difference. If you don't have a practice garden, make one up, it helps.

 

[Heston83]

I have an idea for dealing with some of this iron. I wanted to run it past yall just to see what you think. What if I were to get a large hand release magnet, and just sweep up the iron with that? It seems like a good idea just to clear the hundreds of nails, fragments, parts, and shoes to get down to the non ferrous stuff

Also, I found a step from the side of a carriage (stagecoach?) You can tell by the bent, torn, and distorted bolt holes that it was forcefully torn from whatever it was attached. I'm taking that as yet another good sign..

 

[cactusrat]

That would remove the iron laying on the surface. It won’t pull up the iron that is buried.

Is the cost of a magnet worth it?

 

[Heston83]

Is the cost of a magnet worth it?

That is the true core of my question I suppose. I could spend quite a few hrs picking up nails, and other tiny bits by the hundreds (literally, Im not exaggerating) or I could get a magnet and hope that it picks up most of them in short order, allowing me to be more efficient. Bedrock only lies a few inches down, so its not like I have tons of earth to sort through, but still, thats a lot of iron. I guess I should ask "what would you do?" Im still new to this, so thank you to everyone with helpful advice.