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How To Deal With Nails And Lots And Lots Of Brass ??


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Last Sunday I detected a new property which has me discouraged. This place is an early farmstead that has a 1650 structure still standing on it. The property was once about 800 acres and is now reduced to about 10. The soil has my multi kruzer going crazy. so far I detected about 1 1/2 acres. I'm dealing with not dozens of nails and small iron and slag but hundreds of this stuff (no joke). There is not one square foot that my detector is quiet and i'm getting readings on the display from 10-12 to 57-65 to 84-91 all in one square feet and every square foot. I've dug multiple times and found targets ie nails, 22 bullets, lots of brass and zinc all in the same hole. My question is how do you guy's deal with a place this hot ??? I have tried 5 - 14 - 19  frequencies and dozens of other settings still the same thing. Don't get me wrong i'm finding stuff but do you just dig everything and let your ears rest later? I had high hopes for this property but I think the 20th century farm practices has this place ruined.

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Hey DoD, 

I just responded to you on Meet and Greet! Welcome!

 Don't Get Discouraged!! All that junk probably means no one else has taken the time to find the good stuff!! 

I would love to detect a "junk" area like that! Other than the "Treasure Coast" ( local's rule there) North of me, there's nothing historic anywhere in South Florida that hasn't been paved over, built on, or inaccessible!

It depends on how much access time you have to this property!

You can "Cherry Pick" the good targets with the detector you are most experienced with, if limited on time!

Or, if you have unlimited access, digging it all is tiring, but will not only clear the way for deeper and masked targets, but even the "trash" could be worth finding! Gridding the most promising areas in manageable chunks may make it easier to clear the trash! And not wear out your ears!! Use landmarks with your grids, and take pictures to keep track of where you've cleaned out!

There's alot of other variables that  play into it! Like your experience level, has it been detected before, etc! But overall it sounds very interesting and ripe for some good finds!! 

 I'm sure others will chime in with much more knowledge than me! Good luck, and keep us posted!👍👍

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Joe D. and Steve H. have covered the bases.  The real key is access (which Joe talks about) and the amount of time you are willing to alot.  You say you've covered 1.5 acres, which is already significant in my book for such a metal loaded site.  I would start by looking for the most promising parts and cherry picking the best signals.  If you have a preference for coins (and if you don't, let me know the location and I'll help out with that part 😁) then figure out the expected TID sweetspots for the coins (e.g. large cents, silver coins) of the era and concentrate on those.  Try and figure out where people would have lost coins -- under the clothesline(s) has been very good to me.  Path to the outhouse is another.  Figure out where the shady spots would have been in the afternoon/evening.  How about the best spot for a cookout/picnic/family get-together?  (Sorry if I'm telling things you already know, but someone reading this won't.)  If you find a good target, slow down (as Steve says) and hunt that area harder.  If it's a loner you can move on, but often one find is closely accompanied by more because you've found a spot that was frequented.

As you learn your detector through experience, you will be better able to mentally discriminate.  "Dig it all" assumes you have the time & energy.  In a site as you describe that would take me many thousands of hours.  That advice applies to sites with less dense targets.

Once you've cherry picked the best parts of the property you can go back and be more throrough on those, do greater coverage (i.e. hunt parts you skipped previously), loosen up your discrimination, etc.  Oh, and you might find that what you thought were the most promising areas actually take a back seat to new places there.  Keep in mind you will never get it all.

Sounds like you've found a garden spot, at least when it comes to old relics.  Enjoy the ride!

 

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If its littered with nails etc and as its a very old site,the setup that i would use would be a very small coil ie 4-6'' coil and go methodically slow and try and get in between the nails.Using a stock coil will give you nulled signals and a very high probability of you actually missing some decent finds.

On some of my roman/saxon sites especially roman ones they can be littered with nails from the hob nails that roman used on the footwear,and the only way to get through and get the decent targets is by using a small coil the detector/coil of choice for these types of sites are my old faithful T2 and the 5'' coil,this not only allows me to get in between the nails and general non desirables alot better but this 5'' coil also gives pretty decent depth as well.Another few option that i also use are th Deus with the HF elliptical coil and also the Equinox with the 6'' coil,but the common denominator here for these sites are small coil.

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I  pretty much have as long as I want to hunt there. I have been cherry picking the 1 1/2 acres only because I was trying to find some quite ground. I've been going not at a fast pace but normal for me, I slow when I get a good signal and go from there. I'm going to try a 5'' coil and see if it helps. I've just never been to a place this loaded with metal. Also this place has never been hunted, the lady that lives on site has been there for 60+ years and never had anyone ask for permission. I  think I need to just take a deep breath and get a plan to force myself to just search maybe a 10x10 area at a time. The nice thing is she has shared some very old photos of this site, which helps because things have changed alot over the years. Once again THANK YOU ALL for all the great tips. I'll keep you posted

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3 hours ago, dogodog said:

The nice thing is she has shared some very old photos of this site, which helps because things have changed alot over the years.

If you're not familiar with this website, it should complement her photos, and maybe even show you some things even she is unaware of.

 

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I just ordered a Multi Kruzer and love to find out how it works out. If I was digging an area like that with my Tejon or AT Pro I would cherry pick but more importantly try to get tone breaks on the obvious trash. As an example on The AT I would set my iron disc at 32-33 or just where nails make a crackle sound. Same on any modern slag. It is important not to totally cut those sounds out as they are indicators and sometimes if you cut them out completely and they are masking a good object you will lose that too. Broken sound will sound different when there is a masked object nearby so find a crackle or scratchy sound then make a swing in couple different directions with a dd coil and see if you lose it or it gets louder.

Looks like the Kruzer has a much finer notching system than the AT Pro and the Tejon has just 2 discrims and used to work ranges of targets.

If there is a lot of aluminum trash I would try the 19 khz. If it is just mixed targets I would go with the 14 khz. That's how I plan on using the machine to start.

If the targets aren't generally too deep you can also drop down the gain so not everything hits hot. I do that a lot in parks with my Tejon as it seems to gives me a better sound on different medium to shallow targets. Tejon is a high gain machine like the Kruzer and running it at full gain when not needed flattens my audio out.

Lastly I would stick with the stock coil, 7" wide DD should be fine on that machine.

I maybe asking you for some tips soon 🙂

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Guest Tnsharpshooter

Smaller coil, use 19khz, 3 tone.  Gotta watch Sens setting.  I recommend 91 plus otherwise depth of detection may suffer.  Lumps of coal can cause VLF detector fits too.  Keen ears and press on.  Sounds like a good site to really learn your detector’s tendencies.  I like hunting places like you describe.  I have a couple very similar not quite as old still old though.  Sounds like a site where you can make many many sweeps of coil without taking a step.  Varying coil position, sweep speed.

Good luck and don’t get discouraged.  

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