schoolofhardNox

Your not supposed to copy my trash finds from a beach hunt 😄 Those memorials may be toasty, but they are copper. Where there are copper cents there can be silver too. Short hunt = 4 coins.... not bad. That's a good ratio.

I'm a lot happier digging bobby pins now instead of having your lobster trap piece problem. We have them here too, but not as many as you probably have. Boy those lobster pieces sure do sound good and usually are deep. Remind again to me never to hunt your beaches 😄

Thanks. I'm not sure what was worse, the fact that it missed me by a couple of feet, or the fact that I didn't see the bird or clam shell prior to hearing it hit 😮 Black walnuts are no joke either.

Beach hunt # 21 was the post storm hunt I was really looking forward to. I watched a couple of videos from the storm hitting some beaches, and it was impressive watching all the wave and wind action. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the beach I wanted to hunt, I saw zero damage to the beach. ZERO. 😩 So, I tried the Equinox hoping that some small gold may have been exposed from some storm action. No go on that either. The upper beach area that I did so well on this past Friday, was completely snowed in. The tides never reached that area, so I wandered around wasting a lot of time with the EQ. Finally, some form of common sense entered my brain 😄 and I packed it up and left for my back up beach. Now, with about 2 hours left to hunt, I hit a decent amount of clad, some very big and deep lead, a drone, and what I think is a solar rechargeable pathway light. I barely managed to get that one silver dime pictured, but I was really happy to see it. Fairly cold at 19 degrees when I started but warmed up to a bit over 30 by midday. I also managed to rip my waders (they were cheap ones anyways) and just dodged a seagull dropping a clam on the shore to crack it open. Landed about 5 feet from me. Man, them things come down hard. Kind of a funny day in an odd way. 😶 Not what I expected by a long shot, but still nice to get out detecting.

Those bobby pins mostly rust bigger than they originally were 😄 I do find some at the beach that are almost gone but they do seem to stay solid for a long time. I haven't found any cork lined caps yet but I've only been doing beaches for a limited time. Maybe the crown cap rust away and only the cork is left. Unless you stumble onto the cork part by accident, we'll never know if it is sitting in all that vast sand.

Real nice story. Similar to mine but just replace a picnic/amusement park with your beach part. I was 7 when I started and never looked back. Those are some good memories that you can think fondly of forever.

I don't get your comments. I've read this whole thread and didn't see anyone picking on you at all. Not sure what you are talking about.

So...if First Texas metal detector manufacturing is just a side gig, I wonder if Alexandre knew this going in. If he could talk I would be interested in knowing how he feels about the joint venture now. I can't imagine him envisioning this and still going with them.

Thanks. Yep, a lot of people out east are talking feet instead of inches 😲. My area is probably going to get 8-12" at most. I'm hoping for a beach hunt on Monday if possible, but it may not happen. Cold is the norm up here lately it seems 🙄 But it limits how many walkers on the beach I have to answer "did you find anything?" to.

Beach hunt # 20 has come and gone. I wanted to get out and do a pre-storm hunt just in case the approaching storm covers my small hot area for silver. I’m hoping to get out and do a post storm hunt in the same area if I can get to it, otherwise I have a second beach in mind to hunt. This hunt is the same area I did last hunt but I’m going over it slower and covering a bit more ground. I spent most of the day there, but I tested other areas mainly to see if I could find the next exposed hot spot. The other areas produced the aluminum, bottle caps and zinc cents. The area I mainly did produced the gold, silver, copper, and iron and most of the clad. I forget who posted the question of finding pull tabs and is that a good area, but this area shows you what happens if the light finds are washed away. Only the good stuff remains, but also a lot of iron. Surprises of the day were the 5 Buffalo nickels, 2 gold items (neither of which were the main target I was digging at the time.) The small copper earring with the gold ear wire was detected in the removed sand with the pinpointer, and the gold hoop was found as I skimmed half of the sand pile back into the hole. The GPX barely detected it once I found it. It could easily be mistaken for ground noise or EMI with the settings I had been running. I expected a better ratio of silver to copper cents, but I now believe it’s a more realistic ratio than I thought. Or maybe the silver just hides better. 😄 The weather was bearable once you start to dig, so 30-35 degrees is OK if you dress for it. Glad I had a chance to get out and have some luck. I’m looking forward to a post storm hunt. Maybe more gold will be exposed, and the EQ 800 may make a cameo appearance.

Are the pull tabs old style or the modern ones? Are they deep? Are you finding nickels, sinkers and other heavy objects with them? If all you are finding is light weight objects, then yes you are in the wrong place..... unless you find gold, then you are in the right place 😄 Don't be afraid of wandering around until you hit some targets that you like.

I have a particular beach that has high EMI. It cuts about 30+% of my depth, either because I have to really turn down the sensitivity or use cancel mode (or anti - interference coils). That 30+% is huge when your targets are just a couple inches too deep. I wish I could a adjust or cancel the most interfered channel. I bet it would quiet down a lot. This is why I'm always asking for user control, even if you have to put it on an advanced drop down section, so beginners or people who just want a turn on and go detector don't have to use it.

I don't ask for much. Lighter than the GPX 5000, not tethered to a large battery on my back, some form of iron discrimination, GREAT EMI mitigation without loss of depth, sharing GPX coils, waterproof... oh, and reasonably priced 🤩 I told you I don't ask for much 😆

Good looking stuff!! I'm surprised how many people chose to get gold class rings back in the day. I bet those sink DEEP. Even a mother's ring which you don't see very often. But you have to keep the family at bay, or start charging them for taking some of your haul 😆. Glad you still had a banner year, even though some of it was scary, to say the least. Looking forward in seeing what you (and others) can find this year.

Thanks. The beaches freeze here as well but usually from the high tide line and down, the waves keep it from freezing solid. The upper areas will eventually freeze deeper, but a nice 40 degree day usually loosens them up enough for you to maybe be able to dig. Some areas just freeze until spring. This is my favorite beach for half dollars. This half actually has a funny story to it. A few of all those coins pictured came as a result of one faint reading, but when dug exposed other signals down at the same level. I found quite a few holes had 3 or 4 targets scattered around inside the sidewall. This particular hole had multiples (including iron), and after it was clean of targets I scraped the sand back in and covered the hole well. This is some sand that just stays out but I always re check the hole. I stood up and swung around the hole and got a massive hit. I had removed the half and didn't even know it. I wonder what someone would have thought if they found it just a quarter inch below the sand 😄

Thanks. Hopefully the adventure will never end 😄 Shhh... Don't tell anyone 😎

Thanks Simon. I post these beach hunts because sometimes PI units get a bad reviews for being a dig all machine. I can do this at most of my beaches as long as a specific amount of sand is removed. Too much and everyone can reach them, too little and I just miss them. It's exciting when you dig the first deep coin and you know the layer you are looking for is available. But at the end of the day, I can say that most people will not find these coins with their VLF/MF machines. I barely get them with the GPX.

I do the same thing. I push it down as far as possible by standing on the back of the scoop and wiggling it to get through the tough shell/ rock sand. I use the Xtreme stainless steel scoop and carbon handle. Heavy but worth it. I do the same thing. I push it down as far as possible by standing on the back of the scoop and wiggling it to get through the tough shell/ rock sand. I use the Xtreme stainless steel scoop and carbon handle. Heavy but worth it. So far, not even any sign that it can not handle it. Very durable scoop. Unfortunately not a good candidate for what mcjtom was looking for. Not very portable for travel or cheap.

Yep, that's all I got. 😄 If only I lived right next to the beach.......🤭

Beach hunt # 19 was a later, but better than never hunt, a couple of days after the big storm surge. The weather was supposed to be a snow and possible icy road mix, so I decided to NOT do a beach hunt. 😞 Then a friend posted a video of the storm surge breaking over a wall at the beach, shot a few days previous. I talked myself into going and decided I would travel very slowly if it iced up. Got there no problem. Funny how storms work, as the fist thing I saw on the beach was that the sand was pushed way up high on the beach, higher than I have ever seen it. But just 50 yards from that spot, I noticed about a foot of sand was removed. Let’s give it a go. So, I hit an area that looked lower, and it produced some modern clad and just as I was going to wander away, it produced a Buffalo nickel. And that was the way things happened for most of the day. The Indian head cent was the same scenario - all clad and just that one old coin. I thought this was going to be all I could get, so I figured I would hit an area that I did really well at last year and looked like it was also down 12” of sand. I really hit this area hard before, so I just wanted to see what scraps I could find. Thankfully, that is not how it turned out to be. 🤩There were no scraps to be found, ironically just the opposite. I started to pop out a lot of copper cents, lead, and silver. I wish I started the day there. I was very excited to see my beach was starting to give up silver again and I’ll probably hit it again later next week. I hope conditions do not change significantly. The weather was tolerable at around 35 degrees for most of the hunt with very mild winds. Great to get out and dig some sand!

I like it 👍

Some good finds, especially the older ones from the park. Love the watch fob.

For me I wish they would have some product ready to ship, when announced. That way we know it's a done deal and not some "almost ready - coming soon" bull#@%# line. If some people get their order in, then others will put aside money for it. Wait too long and that money gets spent somewhere else. Put the detector in YouTube's hands and let the show start 😄 At least the complaints will be toward the videos and not the manufacturers or dealers. 😊

Beach hunt # 18 is still a continuation of hunting the same beach that I was getting a lot of copper cents from. Tide was not very low, and I was determined to try the 17x21 SEF coil to see if I could squeak out anything just beyond the other coils reach. I also want to see if it could actually find a dime size object deep. With the tide down as low as it was going to be, I should have waited to try the big coil. It did work well in popping a lot of clad in a short span, but the sand changes in moisture very fast, and it soon became too jumpy to use without dropping sensitivity a lot. So, I tried the 12.5” coil that gave me trouble a while back and it worked well but soon started acting up also, so I switched to the 11” Detech coil. Smooth as could be. On this beach I prefer the 11” over the other coils as I can crank the 11” and get really good depth and a lot quieter EMI. The others work, but you need to be aware of the saturation of the sand you are hunting. It took a while, but I finally hit the coin / silver line and ended up with 5 silvers, one of which was the ’27 Standing Liberty Quarter – a nice surprise indeed. A cool looking lead soldier as well, and some big chunks of lead really deep. I thought I was digging iron for sure. I did dig some nasty looking globs of iron, so I broke them open to see what they held. No coins trapped inside them iron globs this time around. Still a decent number of copper cents vs zincs and really not a lot of holes dug on this hunt. I’ll probably end up there again next week to hit some areas I didn’t really cover well. Always a pleasure to just unwind and do the best hobby on the planet!!!!!!

I was one of those non Fisher guys that was willing to give them a shot at winning me over. As far as I see, it was a lose/lose deal for them. The other loyal Fisher guys would have hopped all over this machine if they did it right, and us non Fisher guys would have been brought over to Fisher, some for the very first time. What business does not want converted customers? The damage they did to the company reputation is not easily overcome. It really is a specialty machine that most people would not buy, so why disregard your small pool of potential customers? I agree, I'm sure they really do not care in the long run, but I bet Alexandre does care and some of their engineers care, but the corporate part has no worries I'm sure. I can't blame Rick for any of this, as he could not do anything about it and is probably as dumbfounded as we are in how this played out. Now with all the other MF machines ratcheting up the beach wars, that specialty PI may just become a past memory. I will stick with my GPX.