If you discriminate you ARE missing gold

Bejamble · Oct 27, 2014

At least with the ctx. I went through my recent finds with the excal and did air tests on the finds with the ctx. Several rings rang up dead on a pull tab, pop top and foil. Platinum rings and thin gold feminine/kids like to ring up as foil and can slaw. They sound like and visually look the same. Unless you are digging all, some will miss these finds. I realize that with limited hunting time, these will be skipped. I'm the type of hunter that will dig these numbers and pull ALL the targets so I don't have to tag them again later. I have plotted all my rings on a Conductive/Ferrous graph to show just where these finds fall.

Dig Logs :: FeCo Chart for Minelab CTX 3030

Cory

meMiner · Oct 27, 2014

The age old question....

My two cents. It greatly depends on the machine being used (quality and current detectors can be relied on a bit more - - BUT not completely). The deeper the targets, the greater the chance that any discrimination results in lost gold targets. I suspect that at 2-3 inches in normal ground (depending on coil size and target size) that most detectors are pretty effective at discrimination. Bad ground, small coils or deeper targets are best detected with a dig everything policy. This lesson was brought home to me many years ago when a lady was so interested in the detector that she threw down into soft sand her thin diamond engagement ring. The signal I got back at about 4 inches was a slight iron repeatable "bump" (only under the center of the coil). Up until then, I would have disregarded such signals as junk or put my Fisher CZ20 on "1" and it would definitely have been silent or not repeatable.

Treasure_Hunter · Oct 27, 2014

I have recovered numerous gold targets that rung up as pull tabs and or bottle caps..

meMiner · Oct 27, 2014

Treasure_Hunter said:
I have recovered numerous gold targets that rung up as pull tabs and or bottle caps..

Alternatively, I have rung up countless pull tabs and bottle tops that rang up as gold targets. LOL The nature of the game.

Diggin-N-Dumps · Oct 27, 2014

Gold is a Sonofa*****..lol...Ive had it read from the 40's-70's...

Treasure_Hunter · Oct 27, 2014

placergold said:
Alternatively, I have rung up countless pull tabs and bottle tops that rang up as gold targets. LOL The nature of the game.

That is why you dig all targets not iron at beach...The potential to descriminate out gold is too high for me, personally I would rather dig hundreds of pulltabs than miss digging a $10,000 diamond ring....

lost items recovery · Oct 27, 2014

Treasure_Hunter said:
That is why you dig all targets not iron at beach...The potential to descriminate out gold us too high for me, personally I would rather dig hundreds of pulltabs than miss digging a $10,000 diamond ring....

Well said TH

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Terry Soloman · Oct 27, 2014

meMiner · Oct 27, 2014

The point in my note (which was not very clear so I will try again) is even iron tone on some detectors can be gold, especially at depth. My detectors gets confused, so if I have the time and strength, I did those too. I will usually leave the shallow solid repeatable iron or double beep iron, as 99.9% of the time, it is iron. But a weak iron signal, I find that I have to dig. It does make for a pretty clean beach until the sand turns over in the next storm...

Treasure_Hunter · Oct 27, 2014

placergold said:
The point in my note (which was not very clear so I will try again) is even iron tone on some detectors can be gold, especially at depth. My detectors gets confused, so if I have the time and strength, I did those too. I will usually leave the shallow solid repeatable iron or double beep iron, as 99.9% of the time, it is iron. But a weak iron signal, I find that I have to dig. It does make for a pretty clean beach until the sand turns over in the next storm...

When using the excal you can tell if it's iron... Re-sweep from 90 degree angle off of first sweep, if there is gold there it will tone as gold...If it nulls from both directions it is iron...

redcobra8u · Oct 27, 2014

Bejamble said:
At least with the ctx. I went through my recent finds with the excal and did air tests on the finds with the ctx. Several rings rang up dead on a pull tab, pop top and foil. Platinum rings and thin gold feminine/kids like to ring up as foil and can slaw. They sound like and visually look the same. Unless you are digging all, some will miss these finds. I realize that with limited hunting time, these will be skipped. I'm the type of hunter that will dig these numbers and pull ALL the targets so I don't have to tag them again later. I have plotted all my rings on a Conductive/Ferrous graph to show just where these finds fall. Dig Logs :: FeCo Chart for Minelab CTX 3030 Cory

Agree 100%

bigscoop · Oct 28, 2014

You just can't disc out other alloys without the risk of passing gold, not even possible. A 10k ring, not even 50% gold, the remainder being another alloy, including copper, which is a common base metal used in gold jewelry. So just to disc out pennies can easily cost you a big fat class ring or an old rose gold beauty. On my excal I've found gold items through the entire range of tones while in disc mode, size and shape also effecting these returns. And that "null" may not be a null at all, just had this happen the other day on a deep quarter. A little different angle, a little quicker sweep, and it started to chirp.

lost items recovery · Oct 28, 2014

I've passed up on so many nulls while out hunting, usually hunt in PP and check for a null and if so abandon the dig, got the feeling I've been screwing this up. Think I'm going full time Pinpoint from now on. Still need to learn my excal, heard a tone in the earphones that sounded like.. ID EEEE Aught..Now I'm starting to understand what it's telling me.

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Higgy · Oct 28, 2014

I'd like to have a detector that simply finds all metals, deep, and is rugged, waterproof to 200 ft, with no bells and whistles, great audio, excellent pinpointing, wireless headphones and operates simply with no fuss.

No such animal. :dontknow:

Treasure_Hunter · Oct 28, 2014

lost items recovery said:
I've passed up on so many nulls while out hunting, usually hunt in PP and check for a null and if so abandon the dig, got the feeling I've been screwing this up. Think I'm going full time Pinpoint from now on. Still need to learn my excal, heard a tone in the earphones that sounded like.. ID EEEE Aught..Now I'm starting to understand what it's telling me.

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You should always check nulls by re-swinging from a different angle.

Do a test, put a gold ring on the ground with a 16 penny nail in center and sweep ring then sweep it again from a different angle. ..

bigscoop · Oct 28, 2014

lost items recovery said:
I've passed up on so many nulls while out hunting, usually hunt in PP and check for a null and if so abandon the dig, got the feeling I've been screwing this up. Think I'm going full time Pinpoint from now on. Still need to learn my excal, heard a tone in the earphones that sounded like.. ID EEEE Aught..Now I'm starting to understand what it's telling me.

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The "hard nulls" usually don't require too much scrutiny, but those quick, faint nulls should always be suspect. Basically the machine can get very weak returns that it can't identify or accurately process. One of the tricks I use quite over these weak nulls in disc mode is a faster, shorter coil sweep as it seems to produce stronger returns. The other thing disc mode can offer you is a better fix on possible depth and size of the target, i.e., is it just a very small target near the surface or is it sounding like a deep faint return? The more you use disc the better you will get at deciphering these tones. At any rate, whenever a null is in question it's always best to take a scoop or two of sand out of the way, sometimes this alone will be enough to change the response. But if I can make that null create so much as one little chirp....I dig!

lost items recovery · Oct 28, 2014

Treasure_Hunter said:
You should always check nulls by re-swinging from a different angle. Do a test, put a gold ring on the ground with a 16 penny nail in center and sweep ring then sweep it again from a different angle. ..

Will do TH! Thank you for the pointers!

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