Rusty iron reads as silver??

[jsmtech]

Hi all. Searched the forum to see if I could find an answer before I bothered everyone with this newbie question. I have recently purchased a Garrett Ace 350 and so far I've been really enjoying it. My yard is full of Wheats and even an 1899 Indian Head penny. My detector doesn't display a number when I get a hit...just has the indicator which pops up under either the iron, gold/pull tab, silver/coins scale. One question I have that has me scratching my head is, why have I had a number of instances where I get a very strong silver hit and dig only to find a nice piece of rusty iron? Stuff like large flat washers and etc? When I dig it up, it raises an eyebrow and I wonder...why didn't this hit in the iron end of the scale? I just find this curious, so I was hoping someone could educate me. Thanks in advance for everyone's advice.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

DR.ÖTEK Metal Detector, Waterproof Gold Detector, Pinpoint & Terrain Modes, Professional Metal Detector - Grab it through Amazon!

[dustytrails123]

The ace350 lacks discrim you will dig alot of rusty things...washers... bottle caps ....many many others you can sweep the coil backwards over a target and watch for the iron to silver jumps to help weed some out

 

[cactusrat]

No metal detector can read what type the metal is 100% of the time. Even high end detectors can’t get it right 100%.

The detector reads the signal it gets from a target and threw it’s program tries to “guess” what that signal is.

Angle of target, moisture of ground, the depth, and the side all plays a part in the signal the detector receives.

It would sure be nice if you could set the detector on gold and only dig gold, but that’s not the way it works.

Bottom line is to dig everything that makes a beep.

 

[Sandman]

To answer your question. The detector only reads the conductivity of the target, so it doesn't know what it is. A rusty nail or any rusty thing will have a better conductivity so it reads as silver, the highest conductivity.

 

[tiderider]

PP the target helps to , but like was said , it jumps iron/silver not constant by far. Tiderider