Bottle cap infested site, any tips?

[Handy_man91]

I'm on my second go around with metal detecting. Fist time getting on the forums. I would say all together I've got around a year of weekends and afternoons of swinging time. My current primary machine is a Bounty Hunter LRP all stock, running disc 4 mostly with foil notched out.

To my main question, I have found a nice site with great Sandy soil and lots of shade (both required for Texas digging this time of year) however the site is bottle cap infested, it's also can slaw and pull tab infested too. I can work around the pull tabs and cans but the bottle caps are throwing me, there are literally areas that are more caps than grass etc, and nearly every plug has a few in it. For me on the LRP when they are burried 1-6 inches deep they are ringing up in the 75-95 range, most fairly consistently, and some holding the range withing 2-3 numbers on the ID. This is going north to south and east to west, flipping to all metal mode still gets same results. Pin pointing them just imitates a quarter sized object.

I know to listen for the scratchy choppy signals and the jumpy Target ID to spot them, but is there anything I'm missing on the ones that are ringing up so perfect? Any thing I can do to cut them out or distingish easier? Or am I just going to have to pay my dues and dig the caps lol.

 

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[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

That’s a tuff site. For me to work that site it would have to have some serious history with the potential for significant finds. A silver quarter or dime will give the same VDI as some bottle caps, but the sound is cleaner, sweeter sounding and very consistent when swinging all directions. A bottle cap will often either sound too good or too loud, and or show some iron VDI from certain directions. These are really difficult nuances in the signals. Good luck.

 

[eman1000]

I hunt a somewhat similar ball diamond year round and used to hunt it with a Tesoro and a Fishers machine and I couldn't tell a bottle cap from a quarter. Some guys swear they can with a Tesoro but I couldnt hear the tone difference. With the Equinox I could if I switched to a higher freq because the VDI would jump and I could tell easily on the Whites V3i with the polar plot. (*The V3i is a heavy machine though)

The best machine I am now using is the XP Deus (ORX) and it is very good with bottle caps. As you wiggle the coil back you will hear a iron grunt 90% of the time. (vertical, Bent, or rusty caps can still fool you)
I may be crazy but I actually think I can hear the hole in the pull tabs it is that good.
Having said that I usually dig em anyway (If you carry a screwdriver and a pinpointer you will save a ton of time) I dug a few dollars in clad and cleaned out about a 75ft section this weekend.
The big item on the left turns out is a broken 1961 Corvette antenna

 

[Handy_man91]

I have no history with the site other than knowing it pre dates 1965 and is off the beaten path for most detectorists. I may spend a few days doing sample areas and clean them out, see if there are any good finds. I do have a pin pointer and screw driver with me when I hunt

 

[Iffy Signals]

I hunt a somewhat similar ball diamond year round and used to hunt it with a Tesoro and a Fishers machine and I couldn't tell a bottle cap from a quarter. Some guys swear they can with a Tesoro but I couldnt hear the tone difference. With the Equinox I could if I switched to a higher freq because the VDI would jump and I could tell easily on the Whites V3i with the polar plot. (*The V3i is a heavy machine though)

The best machine I am now using is the XP Deus (ORX) and it is very good with bottle caps. As you wiggle the coil back you will hear a iron grunt 90% of the time. (vertical, Bent, or rusty caps can still fool you)
I may be crazy but I actually think I can hear the hole in the pull tabs it is that good.
Having said that I usually dig em anyway (If you carry a screwdriver and a pinpointer you will save a ton of time) I dug a few dollars in clad and cleaned out about a 75ft section this weekend.
The big item on the left turns out is a broken 1961 Corvette antenna
View attachment 1749952

Agree! Deus is very good at distinguishing bottle caps. Why i still dig so many.. who knows!

 

[A2coins]

Alot of times your vdi will vary by 5 or 6 numbers on a bottle cap theres really no way to totally get around them unless you discriminate them out. I hate those caps here in Michigan the pull tab is our state flower.

 

[1637]

i would get a screen or classifier and just keep throwing the shovel load at a time.then after 20 shovel load look to see what you got.then full the 20 holes back up and start over.

 

[Loco-Digger]

Sometimes you just need to dig em up so you can see if they are masking coins.

 

[Handy_man91]

I'm not sure if I'm willing to dedicate myself to that with this site yet. So far the best thing I've gotten is a usable fishing lure, haven't even pulled any clad out.

 

[rjw4law]

Every now and then I will find and work a junky area, It can be intense, considering displaying a board of rare pop tabs.

 

[Megalodon]

I use older tech machines, so my advice may be less applicable to the newest machines. I've had sites where there were so many targets under the coil that I finally broke down and tried a 4" coil. When I did that at my trashiest site, I started to pull Barber dimes. I still dug the old gold foil Heinz 57 packets, but the pinpointing was much easier. And I once pulled 7 or 8 Barber dimes from there in a day. That day convinced me to go to a smaller coil when trash is high.

 

[Joe-Dirt]

I hunt in a similar area, my nemesis is aluminum can tops from the 50’ and 60’s, but mine are usually less than 4” and usually come up between 19-23 on the Nox but I get a “twang” before and after the signal, same goes for bottle caps so my advice would be to listen to your signals closely and maybe get a smaller coil. Good luck!!

 

[Toecutter]

In an area like that I would only dig the high tones, copper penny and above...

 

[alaskaseeker]

There are some strong round magnets with holes in them. You can stick these on rake tines and systematically rake an area you have marked out. Will make the area much better..
Rake all directions then detect the same way..... Good luck...

 

[Handy_man91]

I like the rake advise, also my 5 inch coil for my tesoro original silver Sabre just arrived today. Going to try running that detector with the disc maxed and see if it cuts the caps.

 

[tahomatom]

Sometimes I get to old campsites that have lots of trash including melted beer cans that have turned into molten blobs of aluminum.
Keep at it and listen for those sweet tones. Maybe slow down the swing on the coil

 

[NGE]

I run an Etrac, what's a bottle cap?

 

[RTR]

Dig em all.Sooner or later one will be THE big one

 

[secondstar]

I hunt a somewhat similar ball diamond year round and used to hunt it with a Tesoro and a Fishers machine and I couldn't tell a bottle cap from a quarter. Some guys swear they can with a Tesoro but I couldnt hear the tone difference. With the Equinox I could if I switched to a higher freq because the VDI would jump and I could tell easily on the Whites V3i with the polar plot. (*The V3i is a heavy machine though)

The best machine I am now using is the XP Deus (ORX) and it is very good with bottle caps. As you wiggle the coil back you will hear a iron grunt 90% of the time. (vertical, Bent, or rusty caps can still fool you)
I may be crazy but I actually think I can hear the hole in the pull tabs it is that good.
Having said that I usually dig em anyway (If you carry a screwdriver and a pinpointer you will save a ton of time) I dug a few dollars in clad and cleaned out about a 75ft section this weekend.
The big item on the left turns out is a broken 1961 Corvette antenna
View attachment 1749952

Bingo! The wiggle trick on the XP machines works wonders!

 

[secondstar]

Sometimes I get to old campsites that have lots of trash including melted beer cans that have turned into molten blobs of aluminum.
Keep at it and listen for those sweet tones. Maybe slow down the swing on the coil

Those sites are tricky. You can somewhat hear the "out of roundness" on the XP machines, but melted aluminum can fool even the most experienced dectorists.