F350Platinum

Gotta say this one freaks me out a bit, was it an exercise in assimilation (digging everything to understand the detectors' discrimination capability), or habit, because with your PI you usually dig it all? 🤔 I like the black sand advantage using gold mode. This feels like a noob question but I thought I'd go for it anyway 🤣

Interesting hunt as usual, definitely more like one would expect from a PI than the new SMF machines. 😀 I'm glad you always show the "real deal". 👍

Above says "Who uses what settings for the legend on the beach?"

Heckuva spot you got there kac, I love hitting a place that hasn't been worked over too badly, or that was worked over very badly 😏

Some serious silver ya got there, your half Reale looks better than some of the ones I've found. 👍 🏆

Do not tumble copper pennies with clad, best to get a dual tank tumbler.

If even one gets in with the clad it can turn them all. 😵 

I've used stainless shot and aquarium gravel, they work about the same but the gravel is cheaper.

Despite living in a very rural place, my bank has a coin counter because of the coin shortage. It has a hopper that they can dump a whole jug of coins in, and they will automatically deposit the funds in your account. All I do is tumble them, they will take the most corroded Zincolns and give you credit for them.

Look around for a bank with one! Make sure you go when they're not too busy. There is no charge for this if it is your bank.

2 hours ago, ColonelDan said:

F350, that’s clever.  Creatively clever.  👍🏻😊

Don't mean to steal the 280's or your thunder, but Chase has a similar vest, I stole the idea from him. 😀

Excellent thoughtful review, Colonel. 👍 I have the 280 and keep it on hand as a go bag, but normally now I use a fly fishing vest to keep my on-hand stuff and coils on my back, it has a small backpack as well and pockets everywhere. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08PPB6V37

I cut the front black pockets off with a seam ripper, the pockets behind them hold coin boxes and my cell phone.

For 45 bucks it's a steal. 🙂 Completely adjustable too.

Gold, silver, and Satan! Great finds kac. 👍

5 hours ago, Geologyhound said:

I am also getting a lot of lower pitch bweeps and bwoops.  I am thinking those are targets which were notched out?

Using Silver Slayer will do that because of the discrimination and notch settings, it allows targets that fall below 00 to come through. There is a negative side to discrimination. I'm probably not giving you the best answer tho.

One thing I will write for sure is that you could open up the nickel notch a bit but it may do more harm than good, I've found "V", Buffalo and Shield nickels that fell in at 58 with my program that SS would miss altogether. Just one point lower is all you need.

5 hours ago, Geologyhound said:

Out of curiosity, is that starburst a military badge of some sort?

I believe the badge is horse tack that broke off, it has broken prongs on the back and is heavy solid brass, about 3" in diameter. I remember it being a high tone, but set off the detector at more than a foot because it was shallow.

I don't publish the settings simply because I wasn't sure of myself initially, the program is kind of wild because it neither notches nor discriminates. It's more "all metal" than any other. Notch is off, and Disc is 00. You will hear absolutely everything except that which definitely is iron, including the false tones iron often generates. The beauty of the program is that the iron that falses above 00 will show itself on a 45-90 degree turn, it will be pushed to a low tone like Silver Slayer. Silver Slayer eliminates the higher tone falsing altogether, or most of it.

Again I don't know the science but it works. Only very few iron targets fool it. I tested it in the worst possible scenario recently (Culpeper VA red clay soil) and it acted a bit different there but with the same assimilation result. I was very pleased.

For relic hunting you really want to hear everything, and use your hearing and site assimilation to discriminate. I've plucked a 14k gold ring and a hammered 1607 Silver sixpence half because I'm not using any discrimination. Simply put, you know it's good when you hear it. 😀

No idea of scale but it could be part of a "lorgnette" or spectacle:

It could also be a salt holder handle:

Cool and unique find. 👍

Another nice hunt in the books for you!

You're really doing a service to the beach getting all that junk out of there, and it's nice to get paid in silver 😀

I have snapped one bolt so far with the 13", I like to keep the coil tight so it doesn't flop around. Can't seem to do that with the SteveG CF shaft, probably the second washer on the plug side, and possibly because it allows the plug to rotate. Whatever, bolts are cheap. 😀

A good showing first time out. 👍 Silver Slayer is a great program but only if you just want coins and well... Everything else you said you dug. The D2 is really good at hitting hard on deep iron and aluminum/steel cans, lifting the coil on a strong signal helps, if it's still there a foot or more up, it's junk, or 95% probability. I have had a loud signal that I lifted on be this:

So it isn't all wine and roses. 😀 It's the tones that matter and you'll get used to them. I dug that because it sounded good. I use Silver Slayer in 3 scenarios: First, if there's machine gun iron and other junk, and second, if I'm under power lines and can't get stable. Third, I use it for pillage when my time is limited. 🏴‍☠️

Biggest problem there is you're missing brass and gold for the most part. My highest gold signal was a 79, and I dug a 14k 100+ year old gold ring.

My Relic Reaper program is discrimination-free, but you are going to hear everything. If your soil is not mineralized turning 45-90 degrees on iron will make the tone dive low, another technique you'll have to master if you use it. That and lifting will keep trash to a minimum. If it's red dirt or granite soil like Culpeper or New England, well God bless you and good luck, the tones will be first false and then silence, but it worked in Culpeper so I'm good.

I'll PM it to you if you want.

Like you I'm not a fan of the "Chicken Scratch™" tones, but I walked before I ran. 😀 I love and almost completely trust the D2.

19 minutes ago, CPT_GhostLight said:

Well that was a hard fought and hard won button! Congrats, it's a beauty, well done!

It's nice to see the D2 can handle the infamous red clay of Culpepper.

 

Thanks Cap'n!

We met a couple of YouTubers there, one fella said he got a bunch of bullets and a 1940s silver quarter with his Equinox 800 using gold mode, but they all came from the woods. He said that people would think he's nuts but I say whatever works. 👍 The other talked to Chase at length about the Axiom, and they looked for some in a large earthwork there that was a backstop for a range. That's way out of my range so I looked elsewhere. 😀

The "false cut" I wrote about was that you'd get a high tone, and instead of it diving to a low tone it just cut out (cancelled) in another direction. After digging some junk I got used to it. The button was a solid 72 I managed to pick out of some iron around it, kind of a shock to have the 13" do so well but it's not coming off the CF shaft soon! 🙂 

The big takeaway from all this is that I get a deeper appreciation of my own area, I'd hate to have to hunt there all the time. 🤣

1 hour ago, Lodge Scent said:

Nice one F350! Glad the Reaper performed for you in those conditions. 8 miles of swinging a coil is a good hunt at 36, never mind at 63. I have a year on you but like you say, the Deus is light enough so it is really just all about keeping your legs in shape. 

Thanks LC, can't imagine getting anywhere without 'em, getting a little Plantar Fasciitis in my left foot, but still plugging away. It will go away when I start beach hunting I hope.

I wonder if they make orthopedic shoes for metal detecting... 🤔

1 hour ago, ColonelDan said:

An exciting find.  You beat me with that one.  😊

Good job soldier…..👍🏻

Thanks Colonel! it was a hunch that paid off. Even though we're taught not to "skyline" ourselves, some can't resist being King of the Hill, I guess... 🤣

2 hours ago, TJ Jeepguy said:

Good to know it did well in that dirt. I hope to get down that way sometime to detect and maybe pan for a little flour gold. 

Thanks TJ. Chase calls that area the "gold belt", there might well be some in the Hazel River that flows through the farm. I have no idea how you would get in there, but you also might get some CW relics as well. Hope you get a chance!

I'm used to hunting my area where there is no gold, and "them thar hills" are maybe 200' max. 🤣 All my terrain is flat for the most part.

12 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

It's typically boom or bust at these events as the CW finds diminish with every visit.

You'll find plenty at DIV for sure, if we go to Liberty Hall again the fringe areas and woods are the way to go. 🙂

For a noob I was grateful to get ONE thing 😀 it didn't seem like there was much overall, and most of it came from the woods. There's still a lot of area we haven't been over there. I was really pleased with my program overall, but it definitely was a different animal there. Undesirable finds were all "false and cut".

Wish I had more time to create a better program for red dirt, but I did test the Reaper against Relic, and it went just as deep. 👍

3 minutes ago, Rick N. MI said:

Great hunt, great button, beautiful place.

Is that your heated gloves on your detector?

No, and I wished I brought them for the first couple hours, but the red clay and rain would have messed them up. 😀 I had heavy socks on so my feet stayed warm. It never got above 52 despite predicted 71.

Sorry about your MI-6, that happened to me too, and despite greasing them it still happens.

You can get replacement caps here, I would order 2. Price is acceptable and shipping is reasonable and fast:

https://www.colonialmetaldetectors.com/xp-pinpointer-end-cap.html

As the Cap'n wrote, get used to the stock programs first, I would totally recommend General for relic hunting and beach for beach 😀 don't jump right into the fancy stuff like sensitive or deep. I made that mistake and now just use a modified General program with success. I have a Beach sensitive program that works well in the beach, but really have to prove it out this year.

The menu system is a bit complicated but get out there and use the machine. They will become second nature quickly.

Looking forward to your exploits! 🙂

Great hunt GB, the button sure looks original, your soil is kind, or it's a reenactment item. 😀 Naval battle in a park? 🤔 interesting ring and bracelet. If the bracelet is silver, I wouldn't have it already. My wife loves silver and white gold. She'd probably pass on the ring especially if it didn't have a makers mark.

I'd photograph each item individually on a white background and "Lens" them with the Google Lens app. That's got me closest on many occasions. Your attractive red background may work ok tho.

16 minutes ago, ColonelDan said:

Going to try F350’s Reaper program next.  For this beach hunter, this whole weekend is an experimental exercise.  😉

The Reaper is for hearing everything, you might want to turn iron volume down a notch. Looks like car parts to me, I've found whole Model T Fords out there 🤣 make sure you're ground balanced on a clear spot (12 pumps minimum), and turn 45-90 degrees on falsing targets. They will "dive" to iron. Up reactivity in machine gun nails, but not really over 2.5. When you're not hearing stuff deep, it's too high.

16 hours ago, Joel - cacadordereliquia said:

Bem 

Muito obrigado pela dica, por isso que o valor dele é barato, agora quando se vai num SDC 2300 o mais barato de PI o preço já é totalmente diferente. 

"Thank you very much for the tip, that's why its value is cheap, now when you go to an SDC 2300 the cheapest PI the price is already totally different."

🙂

3 minutes ago, Geologyhound said:

Good to know! I was wondering about that. Do you find soil mineralization and or EMI ever interferes with that?

No, not that I've ever seen. I don't have any mineralization here, and EMI is usually at a minimum because my area is extremely rural. The permission I was at today does have EMI, but it does not affect either the Deus 2 or the MI-6. I've always been pleased with how well it handles interference.

The only thing that might happen is that the pinpointer might "go off" once in a while, the tone keeps going, but a quick button press stops it. Sometimes it doesn't connect to the remote, so turn it off and turn it on again.

Don't let people dissuade you regarding this machine and its peripherals. Everything works well. Every machine out there has its quirks, particularly the most versatile. 🙂