Regarding Iron Rejection

[batcap]

I may be getting the wrong impression and figured I'd ask here to get the straight dope:

Are some brands or types of detectors really superior at iron rejection?

Reading the Garrett forums I get the idea that all detectors false on iron and you just have to get good at interpreting what your detector is trying to say.

Then there is another forum that will remain nameless, but their initials are minelab. There I got the idea that people just plain don't dig iron unless they want to.

Having never laid eyes on a Minelab in real life, I'm wondering how accurate is this impression?

 

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[Tom_in_CA]

For starters, yes: some machines are more prone to give you good indications on certain shapes, and/or certain depths, and/or certain corroded-levels of iron objects. Of course, the fans might tell you that "you can tell by sound", and I would agree, to a certain point. But at the end of the day, although they can second guess to pass a lot of it, the truth is, some machines just weaker on ID's than others.

Yes, the explorer, sovereign, excaliber, etc.... have an easy time passing iron, while retaining good depth. But it depends on the soil, and how deep you are trying to go. For example, I know of some city's soils, where...... if I am angling for super deep silver in turf, where even an explorer will be fooled. But that's because I'm being wreckless and chasing insane whispers, perhaps. And I know of another popular coin machine, where bent nail globs beyond 7" or so give identical (or ...... at best ...... hard to distinguish) signals as coins at that depth. In other words, the TID's start to all blend at about 8" or more.


So I guess the answer is, you'd have to say exactly which machines you want compared, the type soils you're going to be in, and how hardcore you're planning on being. If you turn all the settings down to very tame (low sens, etc...), and get picky on what sounds you dig, you can pass most iron even on the machines said to be weak on iron. But .... then you might fear missing deeper coins. So it all just depends.

 

[Swartzie]

Being the owner of a 250 and a Tejon I can say the Tejon is way more superior at rejecting iron and it is much faster so it will pick up something non-ferrous close to an iron piece. The 250 tends to freak out around lots of iron and will bounce the signals all over the place even with the sensitivity turned down. But, the Tejon will stay quiet. It may give a few crackling noises and chirp a bit when the iron is real heavy, but it will remain stable unlike the 250. You still have to slow way down and take your time in the iron though. Now, on a large piece of iron like an axe head or something big like that the Tejon will give a nice steady signal above iron (disc set at foil). Don't know if all machines will signal higher on large iron or not, but the Tejon will.

The shape of an object will fool the machine too as Tom in Ca has said. Bent stuff and round stuff will signal up higher. I have dug a few iron harness rings that I thought for sure were dimes when I went to recover them. They sure sounded sweet. Bent nails can be a pain too. They may signal decent one way and sound like crap the other way or they may signal decent both ways.

-Swartzie