Need help!!! new garrett user

[Carson Coin Master]

hi everyone,

as you can probably tell by my screen name i am very new to the hobby and i really have no idea what i am doing. i purchased the garrett GTAX 550 earlier this month and have taken it out about 10 times already, I didn't know that when i bought this garrett that it is a dedicated coin hunter. i was hoping to find other things like jewelry and gold nuggets. so far it has performed well with coins but with jewelry not so good. i scanned over my gold wedding band on the surface of some grass and it registered as foil or a pulltab. so there for i have been digging up pretty much every signal that i get. this is hard for me since i live in an area where we get little rain and the ground is hard packed clay. and i don't know if i am scanning good sites. i have only hit the parks and one beach and the best thing i have found was an old wheatie from the 50's i couldn't begin to tell you how many pulltabs and beer bottle caps i have found. my questions are where are the best places to hunt and is there a way i can maximize my valuable finds. thanks for reading and i am looking forward to your posts.

 

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[Gulfcapt25]

Hey Joe,
I am new to metal detecting also. I have a Garrett Ace 250. As far as I know no matter what metal detector you use you have to dig the Pull Tabs, and Nickels to find the gold. Its just something we have to go through. I think everyone here had dug there fair share of them. I started off just trying to learn my detector at local playgrounds and parks. After you feel like you know your machine do some research in your area, go to the library find old newspapers etc. I have just started my research process for my area. Dont give up. John

 

[robert roy]

Hi:

Your correst about that;pulltabs, nickel and gold ring up in the same area because it has electrical conductivity that is near the same. No matter WHAT detector you use, they will all register in the same condutivity area.

Here are a few cut and paste from LostTreasure field reports about your machine:

>>>>The 550 is a user-friendly, microprocessor-controlled, multi-notch, dual mode, automatic ground balancing, target analyzing detector with belltone audio, last mode switching, automatic pinpointing, depth-audio-threshold settings, battery pack hipmount, and the extremely sensitive Crossfire II coil that is hot on coins, rings and small jewelry.

These detectors are equipped with the ergonomically designed ramrod grip for hours of effortless hunting and ease of operation. With their punch-on-and-hunt ability, they are a delight to use. Novices can unpack this machine, assemble it, and be out hunting while other detector purchasers are still sitting at home trying to figure out how their machine works. <<<<

>>>>The 550 is equipped with a Belltone signal and a standard signal. The Belltone produces a pleasant ringing sound over coins or anything of the same conductivity. Over trash, a standard signal is emitted, but watch your ID on these signals as a nickel and some silver dollar-sized targets will give the same signal, as will some rings. <<<<

>>>>Operating this machine is as simple as switching a light on, just raise the coil about a foot off the ground, punch the POWER touchpad, wait for two beeps, and you’re off and running. You are now in factory preset MODE B which is the coin mode. If you are new to detecting, I would suggest you hunt in this mode for at least 10 hours or so before you play around with other settings. <<<<

I headed out to an elementary school in the suburbs that I hit on a regular basis and there would be a surprising find. This school has a very large bark chip playground where I have picked up a few silver dimes in the past. I started at the edge of the playground, as I usually do, and worked one side, moving in as I went, and picked up a few clad dimes and a nickel. Then I ventured under one of the three monkey bars and right at the end of the first one I got this big, dull signal that indicated right in the middle of the display. I dig everything in bark chips, so I started to uncover this target and the sun flashed on the edges of three big silver coins. My heart jumped up in my throat as I thought, “Some kid got into his dad’s coin collection, brought these silver dollars to school to show off, and lost them.” <<<<

>>>>My excitement quickly waned as I fully exposed three silver dollar tokens from Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. It wasn’t what I had hoped for, but, nevertheless, a very interesting find and exciting for a moment. I searched thoroughly under the bars and the other two sets hoping to find some more of these big coins, but that was it. After that my finds seemed meager, but I managed to pick up close to $3 and nail a couple of dimes at 6-7 inches in the soccer field, proving the 550 has excellent depth. No silver this time, just the tokens, the clads, and a few trinkets. <<<<

Summary

I have tested many Garrett detectors and found them all to do pretty much as advertised and the 550 is no exception. It is a very sensitive machine with good discrimination, great depth, and right-on pinpointing. I performed some air tests and got quarters at 8-9 inches and dimes at 7-8. My deepest coin in the field was a quarter at eight inches. I didn’t play with the Zero Discrimination much, but it does go deep should you need it.

If you are looking for a first detector, the GTAx 550 would be an excellent choice to start with and stay with. If you are an old-timer, this is a good machine for full-time use or a great back up. For the price, it’s difficult to match the features and performance of the 550 with anything else out there. It’s a delight to use and with 36 years of detecting under my belt I’d be happy to hunt with it all the time. With its great depth, ease of operation, dead-on pinpointing, and accurate ID, this is a machine that would be hard to pass up.

The GTAx 550 retails for about a nickel shy of $500 and weighs 3.9 pounds, lighter if you hip mount the battery pack which holds 8 carbon, alkaline, or rechargeable AA batteries — with a life of 25-35 hours. The 550 comes equipped with the 8-1/2 inch Crossfire II coil, but can be equipped with the optional 12-1/2 inch coil or 4-1/2 inch Super Sniper coil.

For more information on this dandy machine, contact Garrett Metal Detectors, 1881 West State Street, Garland, TX 75042-6797, or call 972-494-6151. If you are on the Internet, buzz them at sales@ gmdi.com or visit their website at www.garrett.com and don’t forget to tell them you read about this nifty coinshooter in Lost Treasure. <<<<





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[willie d]

Welcome fellow GTAx user ! I have been using the GTAx 400 for over 7 1/2 years now. As the picture below shows the GTAx will find jewelry and they mostly come up as nickels or pull tabs. Although the one silver ring did ring up as a half dollar (it's got some weight) I wouldn't worry too much about the label "dedicated coin hunter" it should find the jewelry if it's there. I can't comment about hunting for gold nuggets as I haven't hunted for any. Not that I wouldn't like to find some.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

While it is true that there are gold rings in junky parks, they are going to be punishing to try to get. You'll dig reams of tabs and foil to get a single gold ring. I know some inner-city junky parks, where I would probably average 500 to 1. That's simply not worth it. You can buck the odds a little by passing certain #s, but you will miss some gold by doing that. Ie.: there are some gold rings that will read exactly like tab. If your Garrett only has broad categories of TIDs, (like the CZ6 with very broad categories) then there's no way to play those odds of passing certain recurring TIDs. But if you have a bigger scale, like the XLT (0 to 100), you can play the odds of guessing which TIDs are most likely to be junk. But usually lawn mowers make havoc of aluminum cans, and the shrapnel can read all over the scale. And tabs can be bent, folded, etc... skewing their TID to mimic rings too. So "ring programs" are pretty limited.

When I hunt junky turf, I'm usually just going for the high conductors. I save my "dig all" approach for relicky sites (ruins, old-town demolitions, etc...) and the beach. Yeah, I'm sure I've missed a gold ring or two by passing tabs in these junkyards, but it saves your sanity, and keeps from having 500 turf plugs per outing (sure to catch the ire of the gardeners). The day they make a detector that tells the difference between aluminum and gold, is the day we'll all get rich digging gold rings from junky parks

IMHO, you're much better off to go to places that have better ring ratios, than to try to get gold rings in junky turf. Swimming beaches (lake or ocean) are you best bet. By their very nature, people are getting in and out of water (which makes their fingers slippery), putting on slippery suntan lotion, and even removing their jewelry ("for safe keeping") while they swim, only to loose them later when they shake the sand off their beach towel, etc....

There is some turf that isn't quite so bad, and a person wouldn't go too crazy digging all. Those would be more upscale neighborhoods (where people aren't as trashy). But older blighted neighborhoods are usually a blanket of wino caps, tabs, foil, etc.... You might also try sandboxes and tanbark boxes, where "digging all" is not as punishing. No damage to turf, easy to retrieve targets, etc....

 

[Carson Coin Master]

thanks for all your advice i tried the bark area at a park yesterday still found some junk targets but i did find my first silver, a little hi heal shoe off of a charm braclet i also found a bunch of change and of course being in the neigborhood i was in i found one unspent 380 winchester hollow point round a spent 9mm round the bullit not the casing and a 12 guage round spent. i even called the police dept. and asked if there was a shooting in that park recently and if they were still looking for evidence. lol thanks for your help everyone. i will be sure to post that good find when i find it.

 

[stefen]

Since you are in ski country, in the summer time you might want to try chair lifts at both base and top also around the clubhouses, especuially where skiers store their ski's while getting a beer, coffee or snacks.

People are always falling when getting into or off of chair lifts.