Slowing down with the Ace 250!

[wormnblack]

I've owned my Ace 250 for about a full year now. A few days ago I decided to try somthing new. I searched my front and back yard at an incredibly slow rate (think of a movie on slow mo). In the front yard I had a hit, but it was only here and there. I moved the coil over it as I usually do and the hits became less and less. So, I went over it slowly again, and it showed up pennie-dime consistantly at about four inches. At about 5 inches I pulled out a 1952 D Wheat penny! Ok, so it's a wheatie, right? No! It's a wheatie I have missed over a hundred times of searching my yard!

In the back yard, I got a hit showing nickle-pull tab at 8+ (ometimes 6"). Just out of curiousity, I dug the target. And boy did I dig! Then, sure enough, at about 8 - 9 inches into it I pulled out a tiny piece of a pulltab. I thought:This thing is looking deeper than I thought it was!

The thing is, I ran sensitivity at my usual four bars. But moving at the rate of a sloth rather than the normal pace most of us do I found my detector searching deeper than I suspected and was finding things I would have thought was a glitch or a bounce from a previous trash target I went over a half second earlier; like my wheatie. And btw, I was running in jewerlry mode.

The moral of the story is: my previous concept of going back over a spot slowly has just been thrown out the window! When Igo slow now...it means going one step faster than the grass can grow. Thought I'd share my new experience with ya. Good hunting! Cheers!

 

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[hollowpointred]

this is good avice for any machine! slow down.it works!

 

[khouse]

Wormnblack,
The 250 goes deeper the faster you swing it. I would guess you just never got your coil over the targets. Try this trick (not really a trick) Crank your sens all the way up in your jewelry mode. Only reduce the sens if you get a false beep at the end of your sweeps. It may beep or chirp here and there but it will sing out on good targets. Do this with your regular faster swing. Overlap your swings by no more than 50%. Try going over your yard in grids in 3 directions. Up/down - left/right and diagonal. Dig all targets that beep 3 times in a row or more. Then post you finds! Did you ever hear back on your permit?

Here is my edit. After further review your coins may have been masked by iron. By slowing down you gave your detector time to recover from discriminating iron out and then hitting the coins. I believe a sniper would be a good choice to run over your yard.

 

[wormnblack]

The sniper very well may be a good idea. I've been cosidering it for some time. Btw, the other targets I dug were trash; bolts, washers, etc. I've been meaning to dig up everything just to see what all IS in there. More out of curiousity than anything.

No, unfortunately I haven't heard anything else about the permit. I asked them to mail the permit and/or any information needed to complete the permit to my home address. I DID, however, find a form on the net to fill out and send in with a photograph of me. To the best of my knowledge it's gonna look something like a conceal carry permit/driver's liscense. If I can find the url again I'll send it to you.

 

[khouse]

The sniper coil is a great investment. Buy one today! Give the permit thing a few more weeks before you pressure them.

 

[robert roy]

I'm glad I'm not the only one that digs pull tabs when my Ace says it's a nickel!

Now my MXT is different. It gives me digital reading anywhere from 18,20,21 etc. Usually its a nickel but sometimes I end up digging a piece of crushed aluminum.

Still, the Ace is a good little machine for its price. Dig everything regardless of what the VDI says.

Regards
Robert R

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

Wormnblack,
The 250 goes deeper the faster you swing it.

I was going to say the same thing. You need to swing the Ace faster than many other detectors!


OMG THIS IS MY 1000th POST!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[wormnblack]

Well, I must say...this is all rather interesting! If I have to swing it that fast then I may go ahead and drill in a bolt in the shaft for extra stability.The odd part is, everything I've ever heard/read for picking up missed targets you need to slow down. Now I'm being told to go faster. :P

I'll give 'er a try and see what I can come up with. Glad you guys told me this!!!

 

[khouse]

Wormnblack,
Most of you original post was about the depth of finding your new targets. All I was saying simply is the Ace will go deeper with a faster swing. But I did add to my post about iron masking. So Indeed slowing your swing down will help with this. You have to look at each site differently. That said if there is a lot of trash then you must slow your swing down for better separation of the targets. If slowing you swing down is hitting more targets then keep it up. I just said the 250 goes deeper the faster you swing it. This doesn't mean to cut the grass off with your coil on this particular site.

 

[robert roy]

>>>>>>I just said the 250 goes deeper the faster you swing it. This doesn't mean to cut the grass off with your coil on this particular site.<<<<<<

You mean the Ace 250 doesn't double as a weed wacker?

Regards
Robert R

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

You mean the Ace 250 doesn't double as a weed wacker?

Regards
Robert R

I was once going metal detecting in a Nature Preserve and a woman in the office saw me and came running out the door screaming "what do you think you are doing with THAT?!!!" When I told her I was metal detecting she breathed a sigh of relief and said "Oh, I thought that was a weed wacker! Have fun!".

One important note on the Ace is that when you are searching in trashy areas the tendency is to detect in COIN or JEWELRY mode. Although the ACE has an extremely fast recovery rate, I recommend searching in ALL METAL or RELIC mode in trashy areas. If you discriminate out trash, you may miss a good target near the trashy one. I would rather deal with a noisy machine than miss a good target near a trash target. When getting one of these jumpy signals, dont slow down the swing speed, but shorten the swing to between six and twelve inch sweeps to try and seperate the two targets.

Just my opinion.

 

[Ricardo_NY1]

Wormnblack,
The 250 goes deeper the faster you swing it. I would guess you just never got your coil over the targets. Try this trick (not really a trick) Crank your sens all the way up in your jewelry mode. Only reduce the sens if you get a false beep at the end of your sweeps. It may beep or chirp here and there but it will sing out on good targets. Do this with your regular faster swing. Overlap your swings by no more than 50%. Try going over your yard in grids in 3 directions. Up/down - left/right and diagonal. Dig all targets that beep 3 times in a row or more. Then post you finds! Did you ever hear back on your permit?

Here is my edit. After further review your coins may have been masked by iron. By slowing down you gave your detector time to recover from discriminating iron out and then hitting the coins. I believe a sniper would be a good choice to run over your yard.

I'm going to agree with some of what khouse said on this one. I believe it takes a certain (At least) swing speed to have the coil react to a target. With these type of detectors, a faster than normal swing speed can actually help with the target ID readings. I consider going slow overlapping more, not swinging slower. The best way in my opinion to work in trashy areas is to work in small back and forth short sweeps as previously mentioned when you hear evidence of a target in between trash. Nonethless, I will try out this technique and see if I note differences in response.

 

[wormnblack]

"This doesn't mean to cut the grass off with your coil on this particular site."

LOL That's funny...

I understand what you're saying, and I'll definately give it a go. I'm all about trying to find better ways to do things. Also, remember the url I mentioned? Well, I was thinking about it last night at work and it wasn't to the Army Corps of Engineers. Rather, it was for the Tennessee Valley Authority. The link is as follows:

http://tva.com/river/recreation/metal_detect.pdf

Sorry for the mix up!

 

[rayredditch]

You need to use a sensible sweep speed. Too fast and it´ll be binging a yard away from the target, or nulling out on iron. Most finds (Even those here in Europe, with all those thousands of years being buried) are in the first 4 to 6 inches. I have an XP Gold Maxx Power (GMP) which is the fastest recovering detector on the market, but even I slow right down, because I have too. I quite often (As other people will also admit), begin to increase my swing speed if I seem to be over a dead area (And also my step speed), and this is stupid, as even with this detector, I will not be giving it time to recover, Your ideal swing would be about two seconds from left to right, just try it, count one thousand one, one thousand two, anything faster and the detector will be missing 95% of targets. There´s a very good film on You Tube showing a bunch of detectorists in the States doing exactly what you shouldn´t do, swinging like a Golfer going for a 300 yard hole, and also lifting the coil at the ends of the sweep. remember, LOW and SLOW, that´s the way to go.

 

[khouse]

Rayredditch comment is correct. Like I said don't swing the coil like your cutting grass. But also if you just barely swing the coil like 2 seconds per foot you may not get it to beep on some targets. When I get a beep I center the target and use quick swings like 4 inches real fast. Sometimes a bad target will break up. Just try different stuff. You look like your getting the hang of it.

 

[wormnblack]

Yeah, I was doing like 4 and 5 second sweeps (super slow). Hey, Khouse, did ya check out the TVA link?

 

[khouse]

Not yet Worm.

 

[Michigan Badger]

This is a great thread and it sure brings back memories. Back in 1968 silver coins and rings were easy to find but by 1983 everything had changed. The THers were asking "where is all the old silver?"

I went to an old carnaval grounds in Western Michigan to try out a new experiment I had dreamed up. I located what would have been the entrance to the carnaval grounds and tied chalk line between two stakes to use as a walking guide. I set the stakes about 20 feet apart and very slowly walked the chalk line swinging my coil with lots of overlapping. I dug many Barber dimes, Mercs, Buff nickels, and one awesome solid gold antique ring. Using my old "weak" detector that most would call worthless today, I dug a pocket full of great old finds from depths of 5-6 inches deep.

The signals I listened for were faint smooth tight whisper signals (back then most of us still used all-metal mode).

This method that you described is the exact method we used and I still use. Some VLF detectors are a little deeper than our machines back then were but most today are still only good to about 5 inches deep just like back in the 70's. Mostly we've been sold a bunch of bull today with all the latest gizmos.

Keep hunting your way and do research to find the productive sites and you'll find 10 times better stuff than most.

HH,

Badger

 

[rayredditch]

The ACE would probably be ideal on a three second sweep. Not one, two, three, but one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three (Speak it out in your mind, that´ll get the time about right). More than that you´re going too slow, less than a two second sweep probably way too fast. It´s a question of balancing recovery speed with discrimination, and this differs with every machine, even in a single make. It also differs on ground type and conditions.

 

[khouse]

By using all metal at first on a new site will tell you how much junk is in the ground. ie. a lot of junk ='s slower swing. Not mush junk ='s faster swing.