Bullets are made of lead and buttons are brass/copper. Take your detector and place a piece of the fence wire on the ground and go over it several times and adjust your discrimination to either cancel it out or you realize what the signal sounds like. After you get that done run it over a lead bullet or piece of lead and see what that sounds like and get busy. It will probably still hit on big iron so artillery and such will still make a great noise on your machine...d2
Hey D2, Sorry for the delayed response. I have recently done more research into books that cover the battle site and I think I was in the wrong area. The area I need to search is grown up with cedar trees and brush and it is almost impossible to even walk through, so I recently took a bulldozer to the brush and cleared a 10 acre search area. It disturbed the soil doing so, but it was either that or attempt to cut each tree by hand. If you saw the area you quickly realize that wasnt an option. So the area is now cleared with distrubed soil.
I apologize for all the questions, but there is so much I dont know about this hobby and my googling skills have let me down.
Like stated before in my prior post, I am using a Bounty Hunter Pioneer 505. All of my past searches have been in "all metal" mode without discriminating anything. I went out last weekend and just spent a couple hours walking in a straight line in the cleared area. I track myself with a gps app so I can see exactly where ive been and where i havent. I plan on doing a grid pattern search in the cleared area before i move on. In two hours, I found probably 15 fence staples and untold amounts of wire. Most of the fence wire was close to the surface with some fence staples being perhaps 5 inches down. I did find something that might be from the battle. I plan on posting it soon on this thread to perhaps get an ID on it if it was.
I have not yet used the discrimination mode like you suggested above to cancel out wire. Would you suggest I also discriminate out the fence staples? I am just worried that other battle site relics might also be ruled out by discriminating out fence wire and fence staples. What is your opinion on this matter? There was not any artillery used in the battle. The battle involved 120 confederate soldiers on foot against 90 pro union German-Texan militia who were defecting to the north and planned on joining the union army.
In your opinion, is the pioneer 505 up to par for searching battle field relics? I am not interested in coins etc. I mainly want a detector that will search for civil war relics and exploring caves.
The way my model operates, I first turn it on and turn the sensitivity knob up all the way with the discrimination knob all the way down. By default, mine does not start up in all metal mode. I have to press the all metal button to enter it after turning it on. I then hold the coil above the ground and press the ground track button. I periodically push the ground track button while im searching to adjust it.
My last question is what makes me think i might need a detector that can search greater depths. The terrain of the battle site area is very rocky with uneven ground. This makes sweeping the coils close to the ground impossible and hard on the coils with all the bumps and knocks it takes from the rocks. The only way to effectively sweep the ground is by holding the coils farther above the uneven ground. However, i have tested out the sweeping height of certain located items and when the coils are held higher above the ground, the items are sometimes not located.
In your opinion, is the pioneer 505 up to par for searching battle field relics? I am not interested in coins etc. I mainly want a detector that will search for civil war relics and exploring caves.
