Dan(NM)

Yesterday my buddy stumbled onto another hot spot at the 1850's site we've been hunting since the beginning of the year and found a Dragoon and an R button along with a really nice rosette. He wasn't able to go out today, but he gave me his blessing to head over and hunt it today. I'm sure he's not to happy about that now ? I got there at 05:30 this morning and right away period items began to come to light, dropped musket ball, pistol ball, percussion cap and a trouser button on the first pass. That's always a good sign when you start to pull some keepers right from the get go. On the next pass, a percussion cap, 2 pulltabs, a pistol ball and then I get a 21-22 on the Nox 800. We seldom get very many items that hit in the 20's except aluminum slaw or deeply buried aluminum cans, most hits are in the 9 to 19 range. I fully expected to dig a piece of trash and was totally unprepared for what came out, when I saw what it was, I just threw it back onto the dirt pile, stood up and started walking around stunned. A major bucket lister that I always wanted to dig, but just never figured I'd ever see come outta the hole, my first Spanish Reale. My goal for the day was to at least dig a Dragoon or maybe another R button. This was the last thing I thought would ever come from this site, I'm still in awe that I was privileged to find such an awesome coin. Somehow I was able to compose myself and continue hunting for another 9 hours and ended up with some excellent relics to add to my display case once I finish hunting this site. I did dig a lead, 1 piece button, my 3rd from here, anyone have any idea if it's period and what it's from? Once again my settings on the Nox 11" coil Sens 23 Recovery 4 Iron bias 0 No disc GB at 3-6 Park 1 2-tones Tone break -9 to +8

Still hunting the 1850's fort site that we started hunting around the first of the year and I was able to dig a few keepers. I started the morning using the CTX, but within 30 minutes, headed to the car to put her away. There's a time and place for the 3030, but, this place isn't it. Wandered around for a little while trying to get in tune, so I decided to hunt in between a couple of trees in an area we haven't put much pressure on. I stayed in that one area for about 7 hours and dug an unusual amount of epaulette debris today. I managed to score my first R button along with a Dragoon and a plain Eagle cuff. Targets were plentiful, so, we'll be back to give this spot a good working over. Towards the end of the day I dug a toasted copper coin that was banging 28-30, which after a little cleaning at home, it looks to be a mid 1800's Mexican 1/4 reale. This makes the fourth one to come out of here so far. My settings on the 800 were: Park 1 11" coil Sens 22 Recovery 4 Iron bias 0 2-Tone Tone break -9 to +8 Auto GB No Disc

Thank you, everything in the picture hit between 10-21, the small pistol ball hit at 10 solid, with the GC button coming in at 20-21. Sometime a piece of large tin foil will bleed over from 8-9 I'll get a mixed low tone high tone while sweeping over the target. The tone pitch is 1 from -9 to +8 and 25 from 9-40, I do this to keep me from having to listen to 5 different tones. I'm focused on a repeatable tone regardless of the VDI, if it's in my range, I'm digging it anyway. It keeps it nice and simple for me, my buddy hunts in 5 tones and cannot stand running his machine the way I do and vise-versa. That's the beauty of the NOX!!!

The GC button, to me, is just a beautiful button, my buddy had found two, so I was determined to get me one ? On my tone break, from -9 to +8 the tone pitch is set at 1, the lowest pitch possible. From +9 to 40, the tone pitch is 25, I'm listening for any repeatable hit. The true relic hunters dig it all, I simply don't have the time nor the patience for that. I've dug from 0 up at the beginning and didn't dig anything but slaw, tin foil, bits and pieces of iron, nothing but trash.

I was able to get back to the CW site today and was able to pick up a couple of first's for me from this place. The Great Coat button and the A button have eluded me since I started hunting the place. Finally the button god had mercy and bestowed it's graces upon me twice. I was hunting an area that I had gone over before, but, this time I went east to west instead of north to south. All the targets were a dig me, no doubt about it hits( I suck) just flat missed them. The bottom button is a 1 piece and looks older than the others, I cannot tell if there's anything on it or not. My settings were.... Nox 800 Park 2 Recovery 5 Iron bias 2 Sens 19 Auto GB No disc 2 Tones Tone break from-9 to +8 11" coil

I love tear outs, you did fantastic, way to go!!

Congrats, that's how it's done!!!

Try using a single frequency instead of multi....I've had to do this in a couple of spots while working in town.

Lol.... I understand where your coming from. I set mine up this way at this location, because if I get a repeatable tone, I'm going to dig it. I have my first tone break pitch set at 1, my other tone break pitch is set at 25. For me, when I'm on an 8 to 10 hour hunt, I don't have that mental fatigue from listening to more than a two tones. My hunting partner, he can't stand running two tones.

Thank you ? The larger button is brass, it's the lighting.

I was able to get back to my honey hole again today. I'm in an unusual situation in life that allows me to hunt more than I normally would, so.......Off I go to try and round up a few more relics while I can. The morning just sucked!! I dug nothing but trash with an occasional percussion cap and a piece of lead here and there. I told myself I would move to another spot and if the trend continued, I was outta there. Fortunately I was able to meander to a hot spot that finally started to give it up and was able to salvage the day. Most of the finds came within the last couple of hours of the hunt and I left feeling very gratified and tired!!! I scored what I believe are 2 Confederate ringtail Sharps, but, I could be mistaken. I'm loving the Nox for this kind of hunting. Let me know if these posts are getting old ? My settings were: Nox 800 Park 2 11" coil GB 0 Recovery 6 Iron Bias 0 2 Tones Tone break -9 to +8 Sens 21 Disc -9 to 0

Had a great time hunting the old 1850's site again today. Found a lot of fired lead along with a bucket lister and my oldest silver coin to date, an 1852 seated half dime. This is the first silver coin to come out of this place since we've been hunting it for the last few months. We both knew there was one hiding in there somewhere :-). Running the 800 with the 11 inch coil. My settings were as follows:. Park 2, recovery speed set at 6, iron bias 0, this time I performed a manual ground balance, sensitivity set at 18, 2 tones .

Thank you sir, exactly what I looking for!!

Thank you Curtis! I was running recovery speed at 4 for some extra depth the last time just to test it out. We normally run it 6 because of the unreal amount of debris here. I hit a spot that was extra noisy and bumped it back up. I changed my disc because I got tired of chasing lead balls and bits of percussion caps. Some days you just have more patience to handle more hits, today wasn't one of those days ?

Who here has dug one, if so, what mode were you in and do you remember what the VDI was? Also, does anyone have one you could do an air test in park 1. My buddy and I are hunting an area that is old enough to possibly have one lurking about. I understand my soil, the orientation, etc will affect VDI's, I just need a baseline to start with, thanks.

I was able to get back to my 1850's site early this morning for an all day hunt. First half of the day was slow, only a couple of trouser buttons, a percussion cap and some lead. The latter half of the day finally started to get a bit more exciting with 4 buttons, more percussion caps and some misc, pieces of flat brass debris and more lead. Running my Nox as follows. 11" coil 2-tones recovery 6 iron bias 0 tone break at -9 to +9 sens 23 Park 1

LOL.. I remember a video years back where guys were using blasting caps or dynamite to blast thru the ground ?

Thank you Curtis. Here's a description of the site followed by my settings. This place is different from most, it's on private land and in the middle of a pecan orchard. There's only a very small area that's original, maybe an 80x80 spot, that's where the breast plate came from 9" deep. The rest they dug the dirt and terraced the landscape to water the trees. No dirt was removed according to the owner, just moved around to form berms and low spots for the trees. It seems like all the aluminum somehow ended up 12-18" deep lol, most of the items are 4-7" deep, sometimes more shallow. The dirt is desert sand, but, for some reason contaminated with iron, of course!! The trees are providing a nice shady spot to hunt for the most part, yesterday, almost everything I dug came from the low spots where the trees are planted, but, quite a few items have been found on the mounds. There doesn't seem to be much mineralization or EMI interference because I was running my sens at 23 most of the day and recovery speed at 4. My plan is to go back and open my 800 up from -9 to +5, run my recovery speed at 5-6, park 2 and sens at 24. These are my setting: Park 1 No disc Recovery speed 4 Ground balance 0 Iron bias 0 2 tones Tone break -9 to +10 Volume on tone break at 6 and 25 for my accepted range Sens 23 11" coil

Thanks for the info!!

The US oval is extremely thin, no lead backing or signs that is was attached in any way at all. I also dug an Eagle breast plate from this site a couple of months ago. Back in the 80's and 90's a dozen or so belt plates came from this location, I know there's gotta be one more ? I checked the button up close, nothing on the shield, we've dug buttons from here that go back to the 1820's and 1830's

Thank you Steve, I had a great weekend digging.

Thank you. I'm a new comer to this type of hunting, so, your guess is as good as mine. Several guys have commented about it being that, I don't have a positive ID yet.

Those are spent blank casings, they used to do reenactments here in the day. They are a major pita ?

Got out with the Equinox again to do a little civil War era hunting. I hunted a fort that was occupied from 1851 thru 1862. I dug a lot of trash but I managed to rescue a few keepers.