the myth of the 90 degree turn to dig or not to dig??????

V, I was referring to the tombac button. Pretty common at the 18th century sites. It is a brass alloy that can contain a handful of different metals. They are usually greyish or silvery looking depending on the amount of zinc content. They hold up well in the ground.

The point I was emphasizing along with Charles was that "conventional" settings are not the final word in any situation. In heavy iron, the conventional wisdom is small coil, low TX and high Reactivity. That is fine for sniffing out a lot of targets but it will still leave a lot behind. What surprised me wasn't finding the tombac with the deep settings, as I had hunted the iron with those settings with the 9 inch coil, but what surprised me was that it hit hard on the 11" coil but not the 9". This is an inch diameter button that was only 3 inches deep. The 9 inch coil usually eats those up! I was using a 3 Tone with Disc at 6.

Yeah I knew Tombac was an alloy but since you can make anything out of it did not know what you actually found. I have only been hunting relics since I got the Deus 2+ years ago, before that it was strictly coin shooting at the beach, so still learning the relic lingo.

Yeah, and I understand your point - many of the best finds are the least likely to you are expecting to find based on the site and how you have the machine set up. The first absolute I learned in metal detecting is that there are no absolutes. Just too many variables and 90% luck.

Jeff after you finish pounding the site with all manner of coil and program...then you can go back and detect the tree trunks, I have pried more than one target out of trees that scooped up targets and lifted them a foot off the ground. :icon_scratch:

That is pretty awesome. I have learned that the stuff is just basically in continuous motion in the ground for several reasons, I can add that to the list. Friend of mine got a hit on a broken tree branch, knew it was a likely bullet, but also knew due to the age of the tree, it must have been modern. He took the branch home anyway and cut it up to get his...modern bullet. We laugh about that one every time we get together.
 

Last edited:
My first was by accident, I was stepping up onto a steeper hillside from a sidewalk not even detecting, my coil kind of stuck in mid air, it caught a silver quarter signal in the side of this tree. Dang if it wasn't a barber quarter lol.
 

Top Member Reactions

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top