Remembering the days of all-metal mode hunting

[Michigan Badger]

Remember back before mode discrimination when we dug all likely sounding targets?

Recently I ran my Tesoro Tejon in all-metal mode just to remember the "good ol days." The depth was fantastic and the sound was sweet and clear but I soon put the knob back on discrimination mode.

I sometimes wonder about how much we're missing today because of mode discrimination.

What if we practiced with all-metal mode until we once again learned those special sounds we used to listen for back in the 60's?

Does anyone here ever do this?

Comment please! Do tell all.

Badger

 

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[Ant]

I only hunt in all metal mode and believe me, that is an earful on the Explorer SE. But I feel if your going to take the time to get out there and be physical...walking around then squatting and digging over and over again then why would you want to lose depth or potentially pass things up? If your going to do it then do it, no shortcuts because they are convenient.

I can understand some people not wanting to dig everything but IMO it's practically guaranteed your going to pass items up and who knows what your passing up.

Passing up items come when ones has confidence in what his or her machine is telling them. That takes time. I think the odds of finding more treasure becomes better when one learns how to pass up suspected trash. Compared to digging unknown unwanted targets at random that is.

I disagree with that.....

The biggest reason I dig everything is because trash sounds like gold and there are many times I would have passed up a good gold target because the machine trash. Now if your not looking for gold I would still dig everything because there are times when a good target has been masked by trash and I have dug out that trash, rechecked the hole and found an old coin. Also there have been times where and old coin has been sitting in the dirt for some time and it rings a bit lower than it normally would, again i would have passed it up if I had listened to my machine completely.

Just my opinion and my personal way of hunting but above anything else in my neck of the woods I need depth and discrimination can kill that depending on how much your using.

Every machine is different. On my machine there is no such thing as masking. The machine I use has no discrimination persay, as I mentioned above. When I check a target that would be masked by a coin size piece of iron on your machine, my machine responds with a positive dig signal. That's because I use the Iron Identification mode and somehow the GB-2 can sence the none iron target underneath.

If a coin is under an iron target my machine will respond as if the target is a none iron target, then I dig. I described how my machine works above too. When I dig a target like that, I normally find the keeper when I recheck the hole.

With that said, we really can't make comparisons with our ways of hunting, because we use totally different machine.

So you see, we really don't have anything to disagree about because we have no comparison.

Chow.

 

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[Michigan Badger]

Every machine is different. On my machine there is no such thing as masking. The machine I use has no discrimination persay, as I mentioned above. When I check a target that would be masked by a coin size piece of iron on your machine, my machine responds with a positive dig signal. That's because I use the Iron Identification mode and somehow the GB-2 can sence the none iron target underneath.

If a coin is under an iron target my machine will respond as if the target is a none iron target, then I dig. I described how my machine works above too. When I dig a target like that, I normally find the keeper when I recheck the hole.

With that said, we really can't make comparisons with our ways of hunting, because we use totally different machine.

So you see, we really don't have anything to disagree about because we have no comparison.

Chow.

My Tesoro Tejon does this too only in discrimination mode. I can lay a good sized square nail on top an Indian cent and the detector will totally ignore the nail and detect the coin. I also own a cheap Chinese detector that can also do this.

I just set the detector to discriminate out those 2 to 6 inch rusty nails and it will totally ignore them (most of the time). The square nails I find are usually dug while digging a good target.

Small single iron pieces are no problem for me. It's those old nasty wads of bent nails or big chunks of rotting iron that give me trouble at some sites.

 

[Mirage]

I tried it for a while with the Tejon I had(all metal). Only "liked" doing it on one site. The other sites I got weary of digging up old rusty nails and such.

BTW - I sold my Tejon last week. I lost way too much depth with the dicrimination up and even then it was a little hot on iron. Unless I had a really bogus unit I think you are talking up the Tejon too much.

Bob

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

I tried it for a while with the Tejon I had(all metal). Only "liked" doing it on one site. The other sites I got weary of digging up old rusty nails and such.

BTW - I sold my Tejon last week. I lost way too much depth with the dicrimination up and even then it was a little hot on iron. Unless I had a really bogus unit I think you are talking up the Tejon too much.

Bob

Mirage,

Michigan Badger is gone for a bit.

have a good un...........
SHERMANVILLE

 

[silverswede]

You bet Badger! Way back in the early 60s of the last century. A Whites goldmaster with a battery that weighed more than an Ace250. BFO....put put put put put put put putputputput TREASURE!!!.

 

[ericwt]

Remember, heck I still hunt in all metal mode most of the time.

 

[diggummup]

Michigan Badger is gone for a bit.

have a good un...........
SHERMANVILLE

I thought I haven't "seen" him on here for a while. I hope everythings alright with him.

 

[Michigan Badger]

Michigan Badger is gone for a bit.

have a good un...........
SHERMANVILLE

I thought I haven't "seen" him on here for a while. I hope everythings alright with him.

How's it going diggummup? I took some time off but like a bad penny I'm back.

Been doing much huntin?

Badger

 

[Michigan Badger]

I tried it for a while with the Tejon I had(all metal). Only "liked" doing it on one site. The other sites I got weary of digging up old rusty nails and such.

BTW - I sold my Tejon last week. I lost way too much depth with the dicrimination up and even then it was a little hot on iron. Unless I had a really bogus unit I think you are talking up the Tejon too much.

Bob

Sorry you had a bad experience Bob. I really like my Tejon. But maybe there's a lot deeper machines out there?

Good point though...in the future I've decided not to get too enthusiastic about any one detector. Thanks for the comment.

Badger

 

[pgill]

Very nice topic and interesting indeed. I thought I was the only one that ran without the discrimination I always heard if you want to find gold then dont discriminate (discrimination is big in South Africa)
I am using the Tesoro Silver Sabre II, and all the sounds are the same except you get broken signals sometimes. So if I use discrimination or not, I cannot tell what is under the ground.
Umm I am yet to find a piece of jewlery even plastic

God bless
Peter

 

[Michigan Badger]

Very nice topic and interesting indeed. I thought I was the only one that ran without the discrimination I always heard if you want to find gold then dont discriminate (discrimination is big in South Africa)
I am using the Tesoro Silver Sabre II, and all the sounds are the same except you get broken signals sometimes. So if I use discrimination or not, I cannot tell what is under the ground.
Umm I am yet to find a piece of jewlery even plastic

God bless
Peter

Great to hear from you Peter!

So you use the Silver Sabre too? Man, it's like everywhere I go I'm suddenly hearing about those old Silvers! Guess it is time to pack one of those rods too.

But seriously I know what you're saying. In some situations Almeta just makes better sense.
Good post!

But I didn't get the crack about discrimination in S. Africa ...hehehe!

Badger

 

[pgill]

Hey Badger, great to hear from you....

The discrimination in SA is still about race..... that is what I meant.... I was trying to be funny

God bless
Peter

 

[Michigan Badger]

Hey Badger, great to hear from you....

The discrimination in SA is still about race..... that is what I meant.... I was trying to be funny

God bless
Peter

I know, I was trying to be funny too but for some reason it rarely works for me.

So, you do lots of hunting in all-metal mode, eh? That's pretty hard to do most places here but I do run very low discrimination.

If I ran all-metal some places here I'd dig a target every 1-3 inches. It would take me all day to hunt an area 10x10 foot. And the land owner would have me arrested

But out at my lumber camp sites where there is little foil, pulltabs, etc., I usually hunt with almost no discrimination. Yes, lately I've been hunting with just enough discrimination to ignore small iron trash.

Badger

 

[Michigan Badger]

My quest is for gold, so I use a detacated gold machine. Most gold seekers hunt in all metal mode and use little or no discrimination, other than to balance the machine.

Like others, the gold machine I use has an iron identification mode. The iron identification mode works well on small common iron targets.

My technique goes like this:
When I hear a solid sounding target, I test it in iron identification mode, if I get a positive iron response, I pass the target up. If I get a negative iron response, I dig the target.

This technique allows me to mainly dig nonferrous coin sized targets. Small bits of aluminum respond with what I would describe as a scratchy response on the threshold’s response edge and tail, and short in length.

On the other hand, small bits of gold and other precious metal respond with a solid unmistakable dig me response/sound. Aluminum rolled up in a ball, or thick pieces are another story, I dig it.

I hadn’t been able to get out lately due other commitments. But Saturday I was good to go. I conducted a 3 hour morning hunt and a short 1 hour afternoon hunt. Pictured is what my technique pulled up during the first 3 hour hunt. I got skunked on gold, but I gave it my all and came out with this small stainless steel child’s ring.

I found the First Lt. Bar during the short 1 hour afternoon hunt, the clad and trash from that hunt is not pictured.

WOW! Great post Ant...thanks!

Badger

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Some of you guys are confusing "all metal" with having a TID machine wide open. I know that the Explorer SE, for example, when you open up your screen all the way, it calls it "all-metal" (because you can hear everything). But that is not the meaning of "all-metal" in the true sense. When you think of the days of BFO, and all-metal TRs, or VLF all-metal (as on, a VLF/TR), those were the true all-metal machine. No tone IDs, etc....

You are still discriminating when you have a TID machine and have opened it up to hear all. Like, you might elect to pass nails (the low tones) or foil, etc.... based on sounds. So you are still using a form of discrimination, not all-metal. Unlike the TRUE all-metal days, where everything sounded the same. Nails, foil, silver dollars, etc... A slight exception occured in the early '70s, when all-metal TR had a slight ability to pass small iron.

 

[Michigan Badger]

Some of you guys are confusing "all metal" with having a TID machine wide open. I know that the Explorer SE, for example, when you open up your screen all the way, it calls it "all-metal" (because you can hear everything). But that is not the meaning of "all-metal" in the true sense. When you think of the days of BFO, and all-metal TRs, or VLF all-metal (as on, a VLF/TR), those were the true all-metal machine. No tone IDs, etc....

You are still discriminating when you have a TID machine and have opened it up to hear all. Like, you might elect to pass nails (the low tones) or foil, etc.... based on sounds. So you are still using a form of discrimination, not all-metal. Unlike the TRUE all-metal days, where everything sounded the same. Nails, foil, silver dollars, etc... A slight exception occured in the early '70s, when all-metal TR had a slight ability to pass small iron.

Yes, how well I remember my first detector which was a Whites Coinmaster IV. I dug every single target in those days. But back then there were so many coins in the ground that about every 3rd or 4th dig was at least a penny (most Wheats).

Good point you make though.

Badger

 

[adivedog]

I can relate to this. I too had a Coinmaster IV back in the early 70's, and had to dig everything. I haven't detected in over 30 years and now that I'm retired, I decided to try again. I figured I can't play golf all the time so I got a Whites MXT a few days ago. I'm hoping the technology has improved enough that I can go back to some of the good sites I found in the seventies and find some goodies a little deeper. Have only used the MXT twice and think I may have to be retrained. It's going to take a while to get used to this one.

John

 

[BamaBill]

I too, just got an MXT but I was running a Tesoro before I got it. I think the best way to use it will be to set it up as simple as possible and for now ignore the text ID on the screen and just pay attention to the tone and the VDI number. At first you'll probably have to dig a lot of the signals that you get just know where the machine is responding. But, that's what I'm planning on doing to get to know the machine better. Also, I got the MXT Edge book and I'm scanning through it and picking up pointers.

 

[deepskyal]

I'm back to doing that, the all metal, with my whites 6000 series 2.

used to have the 6000di pro but had sold it and now i got the series 2. It's what I could afford right now and I "needed" to get back to metal detecting for piece of mind.

i jump back and forth between all metal and disc on it, just like everyone else said....bottle caps sound just like quarters, dimes on edge crackle like tin foil, and i havent founds rings yet...only had the machine a few weeks, but I'm diggin up tons of pull tabs.

All the tones "sound" basically the same, but...the "way" the sound is...broken on pull tabs when swept fast, tin foil always seems to show 4" depth no matter how close to the surface it is.....

Just little things you pick up over time.

Even on the tabs, i'll hit them in all metal, then set up my disc, sweep again, they disappear....and I dig it up anyhow.

Too many times i've dug up "junk" signals and it turned out to be a dime or token from something interesting.

Pieces of junk laying next to an object, two good objects side by side...things my machine would misread...

All metal seems to work for me.
Al

 

[gallileo60]

Damn I cant imagine running no discrim.....I would be digging everywhere..I guess me, and my machine are just not all that good....