Why do you not dig up the iron hits?

[rayray3]

Hi all
long time lurker, first time poster. Been reading about detectors and still learning the lingos and terms and cant thank the people enough for this wonderful site.
I dont own a detector yet, still doing the research. But was wondering why, from what i read is a iron hit not something most dont want to dig up. Is 99% of most iron hits, junk?
Im sure this is a very novice question but I have to start somewhere,
Thanks
Rayray

 

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[The Beep Goes On]

Hi rayray3 and Welcome! Deciding whether to dig iron or not depends on what you are hunting for. If you are looking for coins and jewelry you usually don't want to dig iron. A lot of detectors have settings (discrimination) that can tune out iron so all you will hear are the non-iron targets. If you are hunting relics, then you might not want to disregard the iron hits (since relics may be iron, or have a high iron content). In this case you would set the detector to accept iron. The reason you hear that most folks don't dig iron is that iron hits usually indicate nails, screws, etc., which most people don't want to spend time digging up. Some detectorists dig everything...and they usually find more stuff...it depends on the area. For instance, if you are hunting an area and all the iron you dig up consists of nails, then you might want to tune out the iron since your experience indicates that the iron hits are usually nails. On the other hand, I dug up a nice watch once that showed up as mostly iron (the band, I guess). There are some tricks to help investigate iron targets...if you get a double beep in one direction, but a single beep in the perpendicular direction, it is probably a nail, or other nail shaped iron object. The size of the target can also tell you what it might be. There are a lot of things to learn...I certainly don't know a hell of a lot and am constantly learning. The best thing to do is to get out there and use your detector...experience is the best teacher. Reading everything you can is also a great help.

Good luck and Happy Hunting!

 

[Klaatu]

Ray,

Welcome to the board.

There is no black and white rule like "Iron = Don't Dig". Not all iron signals are alike. Some are almost always a nail and others are close to some good stuff (gold and rings). Then again, some people like digging nails, especially square nails.

The best thing to do is to learn as much as you can and then get out there with a MD and put that knowledge to work. Nothing can replace hands-on experience. In the beginning you should dig every signal so you can see what your MD was hitting on. After a few hours experience you will have a better idea of what that signal is telling you about the target.

To make a bad ananogy, you can study book after book about becoming a pilot but you won't really know how to fly a plane until you get behind the wheel and actually fly it.

Good luck. Looking forward to your contributions.

 

[stoney56]

Ray, Welcome! Both Beep and Klaatu give good advise. Listen to the sounds for there are more than a few. There are beeps with a bit of a scratchy sound just before and after a beep whuch on mine seems to indicate a nail or small bolt, a short beep in both directions of very short duration which generally indicaties a coin or coinlike object. There is a double short beep in both directions which might indicate a washer, round pulltab, or a ring. You might hear a beep that is short in duration but continues for a couple of feet or more which may indicate a pipe or there's an unlikely but a slight chance it could be a rifle barrel depending on the area you're hunting.
As they say, getting out and listening to your machine and comparing the tones to what you uncover is your best way of finding out what your detector is trying to tell you. HH and Good Luck!

 

[Willy]

Iron poses a bit of a problem in two respects. First, it can outright mask a good target. This means that unless it's dug, the "goodie" won't be found. If it doesn't mask the target, it can drag down the reading so that a silver quarter, let's say, will read as a pulltab or lower when too near Iron. The second problem relates to mineralization and depth. Generally, the deeper a target is in the ground, the lower it will read on the conductivity scale. This gets even worse when in a heavily mineralized area. Eventually, at a certain depth, everything will read as iron. This leaves a person in a quandary; ignore the iron signals and lose some good finds or dig those signals and get a heap of trash. To kinda illustrate my point, I was hunting a freshwater beach last winter. The ground was highly mineralized with a lot of mineral salts dissolved in it too. Well, got to the point where all that was really left were iron & deep iron signals. I then decided to pull out my Infinium (PI). It has a form of disc. and iron ID, so I figured "Why not?". Turns out that the beach was literally carpeted with silver, some within a couple of inches of the surface. It was almost like it had never been hunted before. Previously, I'd gone over this beach with a Sov., GTI 1500, and a Cobra II. All of them are good, deep detectors and should have sounded off. Nothing doing. One thing I remember being told by a good friend of mine (deceased) is that the most successful detectorist he'd ever met was this lady who hunted in all-metal exclusively. She actually supported herself fully & well with her finds. Dug heaps of trash, but found heaps of cash (or equivalent). ...Willy.