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The great debate of DISCRIMINATION, Iron ID and Target #'s when detecting for Gold. The war of words is about to begin. So lets try to stay on point and be courteous of others ways/ideas or skill levels for those who are newer to the game. This is an open end post and all who respond, reply, ask questions, disagree and or partially agree is 100% totally fine and discussion desired. So many times I’ve heard from the Experts who detect for gold, they say “Dig It All” and to never used Discrimination. So I guess there really is no debate? Just do what the Experts do and live with the results. Is that such like good advice from so called Experts. So if this is the case, then why do the detector manufactures offer it (discrimination or ID) on their machines? VLF Gold type detectors have had Iron Identification on some models since the 1980’s and I also know earlier General Purpose detectors offered DISC as far back to the early 70s. I imagine those of you who have been around for longer than I could even know of detectors with such capabilities go back before the dates I mentioned? Heck, even Minelab Pulse Induction detectors in the 1990’s provided Iron DISC feature. So are all those manufactures and variety of detector models, just selling us bells and whistles? Remember what so called Expert says, “dig it all”. The manufactures have to know something? Maybe there are times and or locations that Discrimination and or Iron ID is indeed a needed feature? Maybe the models with such are for dummies who know nothing as they have never spoken with an Expert? Could said Expert who does this for a living be wrong? Well most certainly not in his mind anyway. I’m going to give you my reasons why I end using detectors with the Iron ID or Discrimination features and I’ll even go into detail of using both the traditional VLF’s and the more robust Pulse Induction power detectors. I’m not an Expert and I do not do this for a living (well I do not hunt gold for a living), but I do sell detectors as my full time job. So since I’m not an Official Full Time Prospecting Expert, does that mean the knowledge I have of various detectors not count? That is to be debated down the road. I will say this though and those who know me for many years know I can back up my words with the amount of gold and the sizes of gold I have recovered. 1st off, when you are out there detecting, I want you to do what you are most comfortable with and what has provided you success on previous trips. I’m not here to make you change your ways. In fact, those of you who are just as happy with your results and not using DISC., I totally understand you are not about to change your ways. That’s totally fine with me…I’m happy for you. It’s the rest of the folks who are newer to the game of Electronic Prospecting for gold and or even those who are experienced hunters that have decent success…but you are wise enough to realize at times ..just maybe there is a better way at doing it? This article is for those folks. The average guy who goes detecting a few times at the same locations with a little jingle in the pouch. Your success at those sites tell, you’re doing it correctly so you’re quite pleased, happy and not willing to change your ways of thinking or doing things. I’m fine and happy for you. But, sorry that is not me. I’m all about Adventure and Travel with detectors in hand. I enjoy new detector technologies and trying to find ways to make them perform better for the task. I like gold and the varieties of gold I pursue is quite varied when compared to many other folks who chase it. I don’t know if it’s because of my knowledge and skill level of gold detecting or just that others are stuck in a pattern and don’t know any difference? My travels in pursuit of gold have guided me to more states than most (NV, OR, ID, MT, SD, WY, AZ, AK) 8 to be exact and 2 different countries (Australia and Mexico). I’m not counting gold jewelry and coins/artifacts (my list would be much larger), just natural Au gold in it’s raw form. All the states and countries I mentioned, I have had success with my metal detectors. In fact, I have yet to hunt a state and not find gold with a detector. CA, CO and UT will eventually get checked off my list. OK, back to the Discrimination/Iron ID discussion and why I want it on my detector tools. Why I feel DISC and Iron ID are of desired features on a metal detector and there are many times when they need to be used. Those features save me time and energy. Both Time and Energy are something I desire more and more each year and seem to get less and less of. A detector with the features of DISC and Iron ID can save me Time and Energy when digging. When I use a detector with such features, I get to SELECT the amount of targets I want to dig. Here is a typical situation I experience many times in my hunts. I hunt gold where gold has been found and I like to detect in such sites. Here are the main sites I prefer to hunt and use DISC and or ID machine. Old hand placer workings, Ore dump piles, and Dredge Trailing Piles. These golden grounds were proven producers at one time and they leave plenty of targets for us. Old hand placer workings (6 pics below of Au digs using PI DD coils with DISC or VLF's with VDI Readout) In OR, NV, ID, MT, and SD. The problem is most of the targets are trash and many of the trash items are man made iron. My DISC and Iron ID capable detectors save me time/energy in these gold rich locations. Using common math to show. How many times will that person dig in an hour? How many hours a day will that person hunt? How many days on that trip will they swing the detector and dig targets? Let’s say a person can dig 10 targets an hour and 6 hrs a day = 60 targets for the day. On average, average site produces 15 non ferrous targets and 45 iron targets. So of the 15 non ferrous targets, lets say 20% are gold (3 pieces of gold) of the 15 nonferrous targets and of the total 60 digs. In Eastern Oregon those numbers are pretty close. Here is where I like the ID. I can save Time and Energy by not having to dig 45 iron targets. I now am digging more non ferrous targets than the average guy so my gold count goes up. Say I saved T&E on those 45 iron targets so I still get the 15 Nonferrous, but the extra T&E allows me to dig 15 to 25 (not 45) more targets that are Nonferrous. I’ll be extremely on the cautionary side and say I only dug 15 more NF targets. That ends up 2X my gold count for the day and also still saved me T&E. Plus as well all know, the extra boost of finding more gold seems to earn me a little more Energy. Ore Dump/Hardrock Piles- (5 pics of success using VLF's & their Identification systems) Many areas I hunt in NV, ID, MT, OR and I’ve seen many in AZ have such hard rock ore dumps. Do you know the preferred detector for this kind of gold? Do you know if you take a target identification VLF and use it at such sites, you can recover more desired nonferrous targets. I select only certain VLF type detectors for these sites. Iron ID is nice and if that is all I have then most certainly, I use it. But I know (from previous testing) that certainly VLF gold capable detectors can go a step farther and provide me with even greater odds of Success at gold and saving me T & E. Dredge Tailing Piles – (8 pics of gold using VLF's & their ID features) Love hunting these locations and my success in Tailing Piles of ID, OR, AK, NV is golden. Some of my largest gold recoveries are from such piles and the funny part is most all of them were recovered with VLF detectors using Iron Discrimination. Why you ask? Because in dredge tailing piles, even a VLF detector can pick up a rail tie spike at 12” down. Even a VLF can hear a rusty prospectors tobacco tin or smashed sardine can at near a foot and a half deep. Even a VLF detector can hear at depths of 2 feet down for a rusty grease bucket or lid to a 55 gallon drum. How about the 55 gal drum itself…well I know for a fact some VLF detectors will respond pushing near 4 feet down. Are you man enough to dig those monster holes in loose rocks and gravel? If you have never attempted it, good luck. The material you are digging keeps caving in as you go down and the next thing you know…after 45 minutes, you have a 4 foot wide and 3 foot deep hole. Only another foot more to go. Oh those days…can kill an old mans ego for the whole trips…I’ve seen it happen. As you can see from the Success pictures, the ability to use Iron ID on Pulse Induction & VLF detectors has proved golden. Now, taking today's newer Identification ID machines a step further saves me much time on pursuing only the best and most probably signals to dig. No, there’s no magic to it, but I’ve learned a lot more than most about different kinds of gold and how it reads on these ID machines. So many of the sites I currently hunt, the bigger solid nuggets are gone and have been for 10+ yrs. But there’s still some of that specimen stuff the older technologies missed. Sites I enjoy detecting are the trash areas most others try for an hour or 2 and then they walk away is discuss. They’re tired of digging holes and finding iron nails, boot tacks and shovel heads. Sure, I dig a few of those shovel heads, but not as many as most others do. I’ve spent the time in the field and learned. I’ve purchased most of the newer technologies and tested/compared each to see how they stand. No one detector does it all, but I know this. I quality PI and a new technology VLF sure does cover most bases. After all, I can tell you with fact, that the last 5 yrs, my gold finds are better than most and the majority were recovered using my techniques in the locations I mentioned. It’s hard to beat what works and puts the gold in the safe. Knowing where and how varying gold finds register on your VLF detector is crucial. Here’s an example of what most folks encounter when in the field at an old gold producing site. Ore dump piles, are full of rail tie spikes and blasting caps. Also seems to be a beacon for lead bullets of a variety, but usually .22 and 9MM slugs. Many of my gold recoveries from these sites, the newest of VLF gold detectors can ID the difference between such targets. Also, the majority of gold specimens in a certain pile, seems to ID the same #’s or very close to it. Yes it does take practice and time to learn, but in the end, you have knowledge to be selective and save time/energy. Hand working placer digs has a bigger variety of trash items and one some of my locations, the gold is thicker, more dense and reads different. I usually use VLF ID’s to help identify and ignore the high conductor targets while concentrating on the lower ones. Most gold (not all) will read in the low to possibly medium range. Even using a Pulse Induction detector with Iron DISC is possible and quite rewarding. Dredge Tailing piles are a lot like hand placer workings, but they provide even a bigger variety of trash. These piles are the hardest to learn and use a PI detector. I prefer a VLF for most of the tailing pile hunts I do, as the machine itself is much lighter and easier to swing on side hills all day. Besides I don’t want to dig 2’ or 3’ deep holes and those occasional 4’ ones will practically kill you. On the rare occasion there is big thicker gold (Ganes Creek, AK). I recommend if you swing a PI, you better have a quality VLF detector handy to help ID as you dig. So many varieties of gold and the areas, terrains and methods they were minded in the US. Australia and other countries of the gold bearing regions are different and those of you from there may not see any use in my techniques and style of hunting or the detectors I use. That’s totally understandable and I have no issues. But if you do have hard rock ore dumps and hand placer workings with trash, it might be worth the time to swing PI and DD coil or a VLF with good target identification. I look forward to hearing from those who use my techniques and I also want to hear from others who might have things to add. What is most important about this post and discussion is the actual discussion and sharing of knowledge. After all, that’s why were on here right? Thanks for your input and reading.

Recovering from a record breaking Winter of Snow, now we are suffering from near daily Rains. My Theory is there is so much moisture in the Sierra’s coupled with warm Spring days turns it into afternoon Thunder Storms. Anyway a person addicted to our hobby has to get out and search for their fix. This story is about my 3rd trip and just like the first two trips knowing that the ground was subpar for detecting…but, it’s the hunt and hunt we must! Met my Pard Lucky Larry out of Elko, NV we quickly hoped into my RZR and hit the trail. Notice I didn’t say Dusty Trail. We hit several old haunts with limited results at each. We ended up hunting some new ground, I dropped Larry off on one side of the hill and I drove over it to hunt the other side. Hour later, I went back to my RZR to pick up Larry and my trusty machine would not start! During the over a mile hike back to my truck, I figured it was my Fuel Pump…of course no Shade Trees out in the high Desert to confirm my diagnosis. Lucky I have a winch on my RZR as we would have never got her loaded up, didn’t bother trying to crank it before loading as I knew I’d need every bit of my battery to load it. It rained on and off as we drove back to camp and continued thru the night. Next morning we drove to a nearby patch and pulled a few more dinks before I loaded up and left with rain drops just starting to fall. Back home with my newly Amazon delivered fuel pump, I hoped in the bed of my truck where I left my RZR. Let’s see if the battery recharged itself, the sucker cranks up! I unload it and take it for a ride in the back 40. Cranked every time I turned it off too! Still no shade trees, but in my garage I thought maybe it was Vapor Locked? I read up on it and it’s not uncommon…so if you see my little Red RZR way out in no-man’s land laying in a puddle of oil, know I shed a tear! It’s Memorial Day and according to Weather report 3 more days of afternoon thunder storms. Rye Patch area will need a few dry days to get the ground settled down to hear them dinks, but there is always some shallow ducks to get your coil over until better conditions arrive! Here’s our loot for the day and a half trip…yes, my poke is on the left. Both Larry and I used the 10x5 Coiltek on our 6000’s…great coil. Until the next hunt! LuckyLundy

Today was the last day I could get out before a week long relic hunting and possibly water hunting trip. It's been raining since Saturday night on and off, windy and in the 60s so I didn't expect to find much at the beach I went to. I recently updated the D2 to V1.1, did some air tests to create a new beach program. Used Beach Sensitive, disc at 10, no notch, no Silencer, Bottle Caps ended up at 5. High Square Full Tones audio. Gotta say I really thought XP had got the iron falsing under control with my air tests, even aluminum makes a distinct "brassy" sound with this program. However, all that glitters is not gold. 🤣 This beach is rough, at one end there is a motel and the beach is almost all pebbles, you cannot go barefoot or wear sandals if you have old feet. 😀 In the middle it's a mix of sand and pebbles in bands, and the other end it's a mix of sand and red clay. Ground balance varies from 79 to 95 depending on where you are. Got here early hoping at least someone braved the weather and came to the beach, it looks like some did and I was the first to hit it. 3 other people showed up later and complained they weren't finding anything, I sort of had to bite my tongue. 😏 Iron did false until I changed bottle caps a bit, there is quite a bit of junk in the sand. Pushing disc to 10 helped a little, I'm glad they fixed the audio. With disc at 10 most iron will disappear. (Thanks Andy!) Most pull tabs have that brassy sound, I dug a few to prove it. I think one was in the 70s so I dug it anyway. That one fooled me. I was getting coins here and there, they jumped out sharply with very close IDs. Managed to get at least one of every US denomination, and a nice 1945 wheat. That was a great sign. On the pebble beach I got a 47 and found this tiny ring, I doubt it's anything good but it was a solid tone and ID. It was just in the surf, and pretty deep. Next one was this bling ring, a hard 85. Looks like it's been there a while. My best ring today was this tungsten carbide and malachite ring that my wife took immediately, it was a 54: About $15-$30 on Amazon. 3 Keys Jewelry. Here's the total take: And the trash: The doll swims if you tighten the innerspring by spinning the arms. 😀 Second small doll I've found there and second pair of tweezers. 😵 It was interesting to see the difference between air testing and real world, never done it before. Think I'll stick with real world.

I never notched out pull tabs...or tried to.... because as we all know they ring up in a similar range as some nice targets. But I thought I'd experiment with 32 random pull tabs from a variety of manufacturers using Deus V1.0 and V1.1 just out of idle curiosity more than anything. Had the new update versions changed how pull tabs were identified? What I confirmed was more or less the obvious...pull tabs, like bottle caps, are not all created equal. In other words, pull tabs in pristine condition rang up in a range from 61-65 in my tests. Now keep in mind these pull tabs I used were relatively new. None were broken or had been in the sand for an extended period of time and the tests I ran were air tests...yes I know...air tests...ugh! In real salty beach life, pull tabs are found in a wide ranging state of deterioration, age and design, as well as an endless array of parts and pieces. As a result, I've found their VDI to ring up anywhere from the 50s to the 70s! Notch out that range at your own risk...regardless of the update version or detector used. Now if you want to focus on recently dropped pull tabs, i.e. new ones, you can try notching out 61-65 which will indeed get rid of SOME new ones. However, a women's 22K ring I brought back from Saudi Arabia after DESERT STORM rang up as a solid 62!!!! So again, enter that door at your own risk. Granted, you'll find tens of thousands of pulls tabs for every 22K ring but what other nice gold items of various metallurgical composition will ring up in that same 61-65 range? In any case, it was an interesting exercise and I enjoy interesting exercises where metal detection and detectors are concerned. Bottom line for you; the results of this personal lark is worth exactly what you just paid for it...🤣

"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist". - Picasso Aphorisms like "dig it all", "low and slow", etc are good for people detecting club claims, heavily worked areas, old patches, etc. For those detecting a wide range of different environments and doing exploration, it's often more about figuring out when and where to break the rules and how to adapt to changing, new environments in order to maximize yield (aka - your total gold take per unit time spent).

Well I certainly don't consider myself an expert gold prospector. There are many people on this forum that have found more gold in a day than I've found in a year. But I have used both PI and VLF's detectors for beach, relic and gold prospecting enough to know when each should be used. Right tool for the right job. I doesn't scare me to wander into a sea of trash with a PI and a small coil, if the reward is big enough. But at the same time if a VLF will get the job done I'm all for using one. At sites with high mineralization I see little sense in using a VLF no matter what the target size is. Unless the trash is so thick you can't swing without hitting 3 or 4 targets. If I used a VLF at those types of sites I'm confident I would be leaving more behind that I would find. Example the last small gold nugget I found with the 6000 at about a inch deep, the Manticore was calling it iron laying right on top of the ground. Do I dig everything I hear on a PI? No, I make a dig discission off what the target sounds like. Do I miss gold doing that probably, but that's my form of discrimination with a PI. If there's lost of trash, put on a smaller coil. Some of the best finds I've made over the last 10 years have been with a PI. I'm in the camp of using a PI with no disc.

Great topic, Gerry, this one never gets old. VLF disc certainly has improved over the years, but you need to be very mindful of when and how to use it. Experienced detectorists like you know when to use it sucessfully. But many less experienced operators abuse it to an extent where they miss most if not all gold. The large gold specimens that you show are probably not representative of what most people usually find in the field when they go on their club claims, and small(er) gold in mineralized ground are mostly missed when using discrimination. Also, depth is detrimental to discrimination as I am sure you know. Countless times I have recoverd small gold nuggets that read as ferreous on the meter, in particular when encased in iron rich soil. So, IMO discrimination is generally not a good strategy, with exception of certain circumstances where it can come in handy. But it takes experience and knowledge to use it properly. But for more serious gold nugget hunting, in particular at the detecting edge, discrimination is totally useless, and this is the reason why none of the high end modern ML gold detectors even offer that feature. Witout a doubt you know all this, so I am speaking more to the newcomers who might not be familiar with the technical limitations of discrimination, in particular when gold nugget shooting. GC

Top insights Gerry to start this this thread, I`ve not used iron reject/discrim at all in my 45 plus years, mainly because there is not any need for such out in the unworked fringes where an occasional horseshoe/nail/bullet/pellet is encountered. Aged legs are dictating those long searches in rugged country via shanks pony are near over so part of this season on day trips I`m amongst the junk in closer to the mines/settlements. I will be following this thread with much interest to pick up any hints from those who work such areas that may help the Manticore or Axiom w/. DD score amongst the junk without losing what`s left of my sanity from our crazy fever. Young fellas get out into the unworked fringes whilst your legs can...... it can only drive you crazy but.... when you score... tis magic no.

To help us give you sound advice it would be good to know your detecting objectives, if known. For example: Do you primarily detect for coins, jewelry, relics, meteorites or natural gold or a combination of these? What typical environments do you detect in: parks, farm fields, woods, tot lots, ball fields, cellar holes, salt beaches, or freshwater lakes and rivers? Soil types: Sandy, rocky, or clay. Mild soil, black sand, or ferrous mineralization? Trash and target density: Lots of aluminum, nails, bottle caps, and/or big iron? To get you started: The Orx is primarily designed for detecting natural gold and has very limited, but usable “coin” settings. It probably lags the Xterra Pro at salt beach performance but both are probably outperformed there by a multifrequency detector like the Legend. The Orx is super lightweight primarily facilitated by it’s all wireless design. But that feature also limits its ability to operate with its coil submerged in water, necessitating use of additional antenna wire claptrap. The xTerra on the other hand is fully submersible, including it’s control box. Finally, the xTerra has more tone customization options than Orx, including the ability to adjust tone breaks. Overall, xTerra Pro is more versatile and affordable than the Orx by virtue of its design and plentiful selection of accessory coils, but the Orx has it beat at micro target sensitivity because of its ability to operate a higher frequencies than the xTerra. The main knock against xTerra that I’ve heard is target ID stability. If the Orx is within your price range, and depending on your detecting objectives, I would give serious consideration to picking up a value-priced Simultaneous Multi-Frequency detector such as the Legend, which has even more capability and performance than either Orx and Xterra Pro. But if you are on a budget, the Xterra a is a capable and versatile value detector. Edit: OK - Looked at your previous posts and I see you already own the Orx and have experience with the Legend and Whites MXT so I probably wasted your time with information you probably already know. Providing a little additional context when you ask such an open ended question would be helpful. In the absence of that, I am going to start at square one.

Last week--biggest back left 14k, 6.5 gr. pendant 7.4, 10k, front center 18k, 5.2 ....Manti, Impulse AQ, GQA2... French Foreign Legion with waves...about $1700 CDN minus dealer cut. cjc

Chris and I spent a few days poking around a portion of then perimeter of the second largest known US meteorite crater. (Beaverhead Impact Crater) On the way back to camp one afternoon, we saw a sign for Malm Gulch about 9 miles west of Challis, Idaho. Malm is famous among geos' for its ancient petrified Sequoia stumps, which can be as much as 8' in diameter. The elevation is about 5,600', and the temp was about 75, so I knew the snakes might be out. I was alittle worried about Heidi, but we hiked on in the 1 1/2 miles. As I turned into the4 final small dry gulch, there was a knee-high shelf in the wash, and as my eyes rose up there was a small pile of rattlesnakes, At first, I thought it was one really large snake, but as I looked, I realized it was two snakes. I assume they were mating, as there was one male and one female. The female got quickly hostile, and never did calm down. The male never budged, or rattle...maybe post-coital bliss, or fatigue...LOL. Thank God Heidi was not out in front as she usually is, and Chris was able to get her corraled. We decided to beat feet back to the rig. I could get by the snakes, but we were obviously near a den area, and I didn't want to risk Heidi being bitten by a snake we didn't see. You guys be careful out there. The male snake is on the right. Jim

Noriv - I'm totally content with you using zero DISC for those open areas. When I visited Au back in the 90's, I never once even thought of using DISC as the sites we hunted were as your mentioned and pretty much trash free. Sure there is the occasional surface target (usually trash), but nothing like I encounter here in the US as I mostly hunt previously worked gold bearing ground. And yes I agree, as we age with wisdom, we learn to conserve the amount of energy our body provides us each day and use it most wisely. No more spring chicken left. Thanks for chiming in. Gold Catcher - Yes for the average beginner Joe, I feel using DISC or Target ID features is not desired. Those folks have not learned the ropes yet and need to dig their share of holes. Heck, that's exactly why I don't mind having a group of newbies go swing an area before me. Just make sure they pack the trash out that they are digging. In the end it makes my job much easier when they remove the majority of trash. Yes, small gold and even bigger gold at depth will not register properly on all detectors. Each one built that has such features, there's a depth or ground conditions that all of them can be fooled. That's why when I'm at sites like Rye Patch and realize the gravy is gone, I'm more apt to use ZERO DISC. I usually won't chase those screamer surface targets out there either as 99% of the time, they are fresh bullets. Knowing when to be selective is very important. Thanks for adding. Andrew - I'm glad to see you chime in as I know your experience with a PI for relic hunting is near the tops. You have tested, compared and listened to enough targets to teach yourself the fine lines of PI's and how they respond. Heck, even your skill with many of the VLF's is tops. I've seen enough of your posts and videos to know you're one of the few who takes the time to go out and just compare/practice/train your ears. Using DISC in your head is very important and you do better than most. Jasong - Interesting quotes my friend. Being a WY guy who travels to many areas/states hunting gold, I think you/I are alike as we encounter many more options of gold bearing grounds. The rules to gold hunting? I honestly don't think there are rules to hunting gold, as there are to many variables for the ones who travel. That's part of the reason why some have success more often. But being able to adapt is a big part of it as well. Thanks for providing. Dirtman - The ear is a great tool. I just wish more newer customers relied on it and not the LCD screen on their detectors. Even advanced hunters such as yourself use Mind Discrimination and make a decision based on signal width, strength and site location. I noticed your profile does not give a location of you and it's hard to tell where you spend your hours swinging? Based of your comments and style of detecting, I'm willing to gestimate you usually don't hunt dredge tailings much? No worries, as many folks don't, just for the facts that not are around. Everyone has one.... I've seen that before. Alls good and thanks for input.

Nice hunt with some nice gold for your troubles. We had a boat that did the same thing and found a bad ground connection, someone had put the wire connector to the block and then tightened it down. I removed the bolt added a star washer and re-tightened it down. Never had that problem again.

Gerry, You ARE an EXPERT. Mitchel

Very likely to be an electrical connection that rattled loose on the trail. Usually it’s a bad ground, I would check the ground on the fuel pump.

I recently acquired a fake Gold Bug Pro clone to test against my real ones that someone was selling for a VERY cheap price, the coil it comes with seems to be subpar so it's quite possible your TX 850 also has a coil that isn't quite performing how it should hindering performance, the detector worked much better with a genuine coil or an aftermarket coil from Nel. Even vs a genuine Gold Bug Pro / G2 type detector I would say the Legend is a reasonable step up in performance, and on the beach the Legend will do better, but in a field situation it's difficult as it comes down to soil minerals more than anything, the G2 is a good detector for that type of thing especially in milder soils and it's very quick with it's recovery speed so pulling good stuff out of some trash isn't all that difficult for it and with the price you're talking about would you benefit that much money by having the Legend? Would you get value out of the big price difference, that's for you to decide but the Legend is better, it may not find you that much your G2 clone will miss especially if you are in milder soils. Maybe give this field a try with the current detector and if it's a productive field and you think you maybe missing stuff then it might be worth the investment for the Legend.

He's at it again air testing in All Terrain General with the horseshoe on. With the horseshoe off in All Metal mode, you're good to go. I have yet to EVER hunt in anything other than All Metal on my beaches. Maybe some of you in-land hunters need to use it for coin shooting iron infested areas, but my ferrous limits keep me from digging iron on my beaches even though I'm in All Metal. Video Link

Recently dug these buttons a few weeks ago and thought that I would post them on the 4th of July but Memorial Day works as well.The Deus 1 with the elliptical coil running at 74 KHz in a pitch program was able sniff them out of some serious square nail and other iron pollution and the ungodly amount of weeds.The small half dime sized button is listed in the Warren K.Tice book as a Union Patriotic Button and the larger one is a California state seal/militia type that I am guessing is post civil war era? Tinned Iron Back This One Was A Little Difficult To Get The Details On The Script On The Topside Says Eureka Now I Need To Clean Them Up There Is A Lot Of Gilt So Lemon Juice?

I am not sure because it seems the simultaneous multi freq the legend has would be an advantage in your search conditions. You could try the gold field mode on the legend and see what happens in your area. Otherwise I just do not think the xterra would help you out all that much

Great report, Colonel, thanks for taking the time to do that. Pull tabs are the detectorist's curse for sure.... well that and zinc pennies! 😄 I've been trying to learn some new tricks to get around pull tabs, but as you say, they come in all conditions and metal compositions. Broken and bent pull tabs, and specially the beaver tails off of ring pulls can sound so good and even ring up like nickels. I was using primarily PWM audio in V0.71 and could sometimes hear the differences in the sound of irregular metals such as can slaw, pull tabs, and ring pulls. Since updating, first to V1.0 and then to V1.1, I've been using High Sqr audio almost exclusively and really like the sounds and the nuances that can be heard in it as well. I've found by rotating 90 degrees (and sometimes 360°) on a suspect target, if it is a whole pull tab or ring pull, the target will change TID and sounds (specially in Full Tones) most of the time. Also most tabs and pulls sound a little less solid than a coin or ring, but a ring pull with a missing or folder over beaver tail will sound exactly like a ring most of the time. Also folded or rounded can slaw will sound good too. I also use Deus Mono with the XY screen to interrogate iffy targets if I can't decide with the usual methods and it is usually very helpful in ferreting out good targets from bad. But as the good Colonel and so many others have said, when in doubt, dig it out! That's the only way you'll know for sure. 😎

Yes, the carbon fiber will be available in a longer version ... need to check with the team on the timeframe.

Thanks Guys.

At 0 and 1, the silencer is wide open and helps you find some good targets in the middle of iron but you have to dig a lot ! at 3 and more, the silencer transform some false signals from iron to pure iron signal so it's more comfortable if you have plenty of little iron. on the V1.0, the silencer is a little more effective at high values if I remember well so to not change too much the program 3, XP decided to change from old silencer at 2 to new silencer at 3 (as I understand) is it more clear this way ? tell me 🙂

No issues. I was a newb to multi frequency, just as it was said here! Thanks!

This is true. Silencer at 0 helps to hear and dig out iron-hidden targets. I am sure that after silencer on 3 you will find many more useful targets. Unfortunately, XP has set silencer from 2 and above in almost all land programs. For novice users, this may be a good thing. Detector will be more friendly and leave quite a few targets for the more experienced and hardworking 🙂

Do you have an Equinox 900? If so, you could share your findings with us too. I am reluctant to share mine so far since the target IDs are so unstable on some US coins like clad dimes, silver dimes and copper pennies. I still don’t have anywhere near a complete picture yet. I am hoping that Minelab will offer some kind of target ID stability update soon. US modern nickels have been between 23 and 29 so far with no consistent numbers yet and I have dug at least 50 nickels so far with the 900. I have recovered over 100 clad dimes and more than 100 copper Memorial and Wheat pennies so far. Their numbers have been between 68 and 98 depending on whether they are deeper than about 4” here in moderate to high iron mineralization. US quarters have been between 86 and 95 so far. So no, I can’t offer much definitive help for US coin target ID numbers or for common US relics.

This is going to be an interesting thread.

The Manticore ID screen will definitely talk you out of digging some signals. It seems like people with more hours under their belt are pulling back the upper and lower ferrous limits for the reason of letting more signals come in. They are digging a little more iron junk but they are also reporting digging good stuff they otherwise would have missed with near factory preset ferrous limits. I figure it's nice to have that feature to be able to set it as you wish. There are some sites I've dug every good quality sounding signal out of that I plan on hunting again with the limits stripped back just to see what comes up.

Thanks. Zero effort in finding that point 😄 Just had to look down. Thanks. We find cylindrical shot occasionally, especially from the 17th century sites. Later on, round ball were available, so less odd ball lead is found. Not sure on the diameter but roughly around the 50 ish range. Used in smooth bore muskets. Thanks. Next hunt up is this Wednesday at a 17th century meeting house... It will be the last hunt there until possibly next season, from what I understand. We'll see if I get lucky. Thank You. The button is brass, no gilt left, but an odd black dirt on it. I don't think it's 17th century, but probably early 19th century. One piece , so I'm guessing 1820's give or take. I did not get a chance to see the back side very well as I had 15 minutes left in the hunt and I just hit a hot spot. 😄 The silver buckle was probably 1900's and looked like a decorative horse buckle...solid silver but not nearly what we were looking for. As for the electric fence, i was very shocked on how much it messed with the GPX. I knew it would cause depth loss, but it was the way it made even shallow targets seem like interference. I missed 2 round ball, that button and a couple of other shallow targets, the day before at that same spot. Once the fence was off, the targets screamed. Thanks. These hunts are the best since I can detect leisurely, without any stress. Yes, that's a quartz point - they say around 1400 years old. Thank you. I love to hunt beaches and cellar holes, but these hunts are more fun in some ways, even if I don't get to keep anything but the trash 😅 I get to detect places that are usually off limits, so that's kind of cool too. At this part of my life, I just want to enjoy the hobby as long as I am able.

Good pictures. Nice history.

My super secret mixture is 1 cap full of Shine Bride Burnishing Compound, 2 cups of #7 or #8 steel shot and enough water to get everything wet. Run it for an hour and spendable coins appear. It does not work on toasted beach pennies.

Simon, we weren't really looking for meteorites. Just looking for indications of gold. The crater is enormous...some Geo's claim 100 miles across, but most say about 40. The Great Basin is the only one bigger in the US. There is very little evidence of it remaining. Only a Geo would recognize the indicators. It was discovered about 30 years ago. The center is about 8 miles west of where we camped off US 93. All that said, I'd really like to find a fragment of it. We did locate an old placer location that had Lead, silver, gold, and barite/barium. We'll be going exploring in the canyon above that later this year, hopefully. Jim

I am sorry about the snakes getting you worried, as for me the only good snake is a dead one. I hate snakes! I know that they keep the pest's at bay, but I just hate snakes of any kind. A friend thought he would pull a prank on me once and from behind put his Boa on my neck. That lasted about 2 minutes before it's head was removed. My friend could not believe that I would kill it and only jump to get away from it, he learned real quick how much it cost to replace it. Grandfather was bitten a couple of times by rattlesnakes and hated snakes also.

I had some fun hunting a couple of 17th century English home sites, that were located on an earlier Native American site. 2 days hunting, with the first day working with field school students teaching them how to detect and the use of metal detectors for their Archaeology work. I was a bit surprised since all we could find that was relevant were 3 pieces of lead. All the detectors had issues and the GPX had weird spike sounds sporadically killing the threshold. 🤔 I thought it may be the storm that was coming in later in the day. Day 2, the noise remained, so talking with the owner of the property, I asked him where the nearest electric fence is, and his reply was …. right over there! 😡 He was gracious enough to turn off the fence and the GPX worked better than ever. I did not take photos of everything found, but some of the finds included 4 musket balls, 2 scrap pieces of brass, some eyeballed pieces of early pottery, a silver decorative buckle and these 3 items…. cylindrical lead shot (no it’s not a sinker 🙄), an early 1-piece brass button (cat on it?), and a surface find quartz point. (maybe Levana – around 1400 years old. 🥰) I planned on doing a bit of water hunting, but I never got around to it. I may head back there one more time next week to finish off areas I wanted to do. It was fun just getting out. Finding the time lately to do anything other than home and work stuff is almost impossible, so I was grateful to get some time off.

Good stuff 350>Looking forward to seeing what you will discover on your up and coming relic hunting adventure.

Very nice hunt! Like you report, your speech about iron falses and photos, congrats! 👍

Everyone has one............ An "opinion" 😁🧐 As for myself, no screens, no readouts, no "automated opinions or guesses. Time spent on my machine and total guidance from my ears. In other words "the sound" 😎👍🎯⛏️.

Here is one of many interesting articles about cremation metals: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/crematoriums-recovering-precious-metals-dead-bodies-1.4623039 Before 1970 less than 10% of Americans opted for cremation. Since about 2016 that percentage rose to over 50% and now several states are in the 70% - 80% range. Metal recovery after cremation has become a big business and it is surprising that any dental gold makes its way to cremation urns and to beaches where it is found with metal detectors. I believe that many of the gold crowns that I have found may have been from earlier cremations when the price of gold was much lower. Even though cremations are on the rise it may be more difficult to find the resulting dental gold in the future.

I’m curious. If you were having success with the Manticore, what was it about the 900 that motivated you to pick one up? In other words, what were you hoping the 900 could do that the Manticore can’t? Or were you just looking to have a capable, less expensive backup to the M-core? Or was it the fact that you could use your Nox 800 accessory coils? Thanks.

On a side note, I have been using my Manticore for the past few months. There was a learning curve to it (as always) but I am finding a lot of silver coins with it. I am hoping the Nox 900 provides the same results. John

Welcome to DP forum. This is a really good place to get ideas & learn. Private permissions maybe your best option for places to hunt. You probably know more people than you realize. Just start talking & asking. You will be surprised. There may also be a detecting club close enough to join. That would be the best resource.

I don't understand, are you saying that having the silencer on 3 increases the possibility of digging good targets between the iron?? I've always known the opposite in the middle of the iron the silencer must be set to 0!

If you take good photos, Lens is pretty good at identifying stuff. 🙂

Moisture in the ground is killer even on the top PI's performance wise. Trying to hear and sniff out the small pickers on those pounded patches is really tough during normal dry conditions. You guys did well for your efforts. Sorry to hear Old Red getting crankie with you. The bad part now...knowing her ability to totally shut down with no warning and you not wanting to get far off the road. Sometimes those are worse than a gold skunkin. At least you were able to spend a little time with Lucky Larry and tell the same old stories. This time though, you were able to make a new one to tell down the road. I'm most certain Larry will be telling it much better than you though. LOL. Thanks for the update.

I have this one:

Tests are used to set up the machine at its best..at least this is my purpose. Unfortunately I have a very large area with red soil here, really high mineralized. And that’s something I have to deal with.

That is Hammid, my good friend. He lives near Casablanca 😉

Jim Two snakes gettin' jiggy. You can't unsee that !😳 Glad the pooch didn't get bit on. You pranked the prankster VL ! Bet he didn't do that again...🥸

Hi, To stay simple, Frequency addition means that you take every response of a target from the different frequency the D2 use, you average all the results and you convert to a sound. so for example, you take a little piece of aluminium that can't be taken by far with low frequency and you take a very high conductor that have a scratchy sound with high frequency, with a program who have frequency addition, you can have a good signal on both target because you use the response of all the frequency range between high frequencies and low frequencies. For the conductive ground substraction, you do the same but because you use multi simultaneous frencies, you can compare every signals and you can identify the signature of the conductive ground and you can litteraly substract it from the final audio signal. the salt sens can widen or narrow the window of this substraction. the big difference between ground substraction and notching is that with notching, you detector see the notched target but it cut the sound so there is a masking effect. With the substraction, it's like pure magic, the conductive soil is wiped out so your detector can pass trough and even if you have a little target witch will normally be masked, here you can see it clearly like in an air test 🙂 all these explanations is my way of seeing from the explanations I received from R&D XP team.

The Pantera is an analog machine. NOTCH MODE SWITCH. This toggle switch is used to select the function of the notch filter in the discriminator circuitry. In the reject mode, the target encompassed by the notch will be rejected, and in the accept mode, only those targets encompassed by the notch will be detected. The notch width is factory set to be just wide enough to include the common pull tabs and lift tabs, since rejecting these objects will be its primary use. In the center position, the notch filter is disabled, so that it has no effect on the discriminate circuit. NOTCH LEVEL CONTROL. This control is used to adjust the notch filter response to the desired target level when using the notch discriminate modes. The notch level control should always be set higher than the discriminate level by at least one full increment for proper operation. This control also can serve as a tone control if the notch filter is not used, since all targets below the notch level are indicated by a lower audio tone than those above the notch setting. Setting the control at '0' will provide the higher audio tone for all targets detected in the Discriminate mode while setting it at maximum would provide the lower audio tone.