What part of Texas are you in, Ron? I live between Austin and Bastrop. I'm asking because it will help you to get with other TH'ers for hands on practice. If you are near here you would be welcome to come out with my wife and I. We hunt pretty regularly. I've used the Ace 250 and my wife currently uses one and likes it. It's pretty easy to use. Each of the pre-set programs eliminates a little more than the one before. The All Metal mode will sound off for any bit of metal that passes under the coil. The Relic mode is set to eliminate small pieces of rusty iron or steel. The Jewelry mode will eliminate everything the Relic mode does plus most steel bottle caps and small pieces of metal foil. The Coin mode tries to eliminate larger bottle caps and has a notch-rejection set to supposedly ignore pull tabs. You can set the Custom mode to ignore pretty much anything you want to. So think about this, what's the point in working in All Metal and then trying all the others to see where the target is rejected? You still won't know for sure what's down there unless you dig it up and you will spend a ton of time switching between programs. There's also the fact that your detector will lie to you. And I'm not just talking about the Ace 250. Those expensive $1,000+ detectors will lie too. Ok, they don't actually lie and it's not their fault when they tell you it's a nickle down there and you dig up a pull tab or wad of foil. The detector doesn't know. It's reading the conductivity of the metal object passing under the coil. If that conductivity matches that of a penny, nickle, dime, etc, the detector tells you it has a match. The fly in the buttermilk is that a wad of foil can have a conductivity that matches anything depending on how much foil is down there and how it's lying in the ground. That notch rejection for pull tabs? You will discover that there are a LOT of different types of those pesky critters and many don't fit into that reject notch. And even then, how do you know for sure it's a pull tab and not a thin gold ring?
It comes down to deciding how much trash you are willing to dig. If you dig every signal you will never miss a ring, necklace pendant, or other valuable item. Each time you increase the rejection level you are accepting that you will miss some good targets. It will show you how patient you are. In my case it comes down to how many times my ageing back and knees will let me kneel down and get back up. I tend to choose my rejection (discrimination) setting to match the location I'm hunting. If I'm at an old homesite I'll start off in Relic just to see what's down there. I may or may not choose to switch to Jewelry depending on the trash situation. A really trashy park or schoolyard? I may well end up going to Coin just so I'm not digging a hole every six inches. Also, as GAP said, don't rely entirely on the screen. Listen to the sounds. A broken scratchy sound? Possibly trash. The machine sounds off when passing over the target in one direction but doesn't on the reverse pass? Probably trash. For each target make repeated passes and then step 90 degrees around the target and make passes from that angle. Solid repeatable signals should be dug. All others are up to you.
The most important thing is to not get frustrated and quit. You are going to dig a LOT of trash! The more experience you gain the less trash you will dig. And please, learn to dig your targets and fill the hole so it isn't obvious you have been there. Careless digging and holes left unfilled have caused more and more locations to be placed off-limits to metal detecting. Good Luck!
Storm
