Minelab Sovereign and Nails Question

dirtsearcher

Full Member
Nov 18, 2008
121
1
Detector(s) used
Minelab Sovereign,Ace 250,White's DFX, custom made waterproof detector
Took my Sovereign XS out today to my fathers house and decided to try the side yard.He has had the roof replaced twice since he's been there and there are nails EVERYWHERE...

Well anyways..while swinging in the side yard with the threshold on it stayed pretty much quite in the whole yard with just an occasional beep here and there.I would get a slight tone like a coin but it was keep nulling out.I have only had this Sovereign a couple weeks now and it my first time really trying a minelab.

So my question is:am I going to have to use a smaller coil than the tornado 1000 coil to get between the nails or is there some trick I can do.I leave both knobs for the discrimination turned all the way to the left..basically in the off position.
 

It would help to use a smaller coil if you have one but you can still get by with
the 10" you have. It should null on any nail that is iron, and if you swing it slow
to give it time to reset you should be able to pickup any coins that are there.
Low and slow it what you need, also try going over the same ground from a
different direction (90*). You can also notch out a sample nail that is the most
common found there without missing much of any thing else. If you know there
is a good chance of finding OLD coin's there notch out the nails and dig every
thing else ( just work a small area at a time, maybe 10 x 10 or so. Any iron can
and most likely will mask any good target near or under it.
 

Yeah that's the problem..just about every hole I dig I find a nail or 2 in with the good target.But I have never experience what i did yesterday in the side yard with the constant silence from the nails.I try it from every angle and keeping getting the constant silence with the beep every few swings but it makes it hard to tell what and where it is.I have pulled 2 silver rosies out of the yard so far as well as a screw on lid like for a jar that was a good 10-12" deep and the house was built in 1901.
 

The smaller coil will help separate the iron nails from the coins if there are any. The side yard would have more nails from them sliding off the roof and remember roofing nails might not all be iron. You can try it with Iron Mask turned off and dig every signal. This is tiring but the only way to clean up the area.
 

Some of the older houses like mine 122 years old they used copper nails for the roofs and copper gutters my front yard was full of them about four feet from the house so make sure what those nails are made from Dd60
 

I agree with XT1800. If the nails are anything but iron notch them out and dig everything. Using the notch feature as apposed to the discrimination to just knock out that particular type nail will help find good targets mixed with the nails. Most of my hunting is in iron infested ghost towns and logging camps using the GT and using auto sensitivity and/or sometimes a combination off iron mask off and auto sens. along with a small coil works great. It will run pretty smoothly and knock out most of the larger iron falses. Just go slow and work those iffy signals with the Sovereign wiggle from different directions.
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top