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Anyone a Pistol Expert? I just dug this banger of a find. Minelab Equinox 800 sniffed it at only 10". Please share with your gun buddies and we'll get it figured out. It is one of my cooler Idaho digs. Oh, and if you have been lucky enough to have found a pistol or gun, please share story and photos on here.

I hit an old sports field that had produced old coins for some of the veteran treasure hunters before me but uunfortunatelymost of it had been covered with fill so I hit the woods where people had camped in the late 1800s. It has been a while since I found a coin there but luckily I was and was reminded of the old dump while walking the creek. I found the spoon on the bank next to an old piece of tin fashioned into a plate.

From some research so far: Feel free to add more knowledge, would be appreciated. Factors of items going deeper into earth 1. Worms (LOL) 2. Leaves organic matter build up over time 3. Moles 4. Drainage Is that it?? I know its a noob thing to be obsessed with depth, but i keep wondering how deep those medieval/Roman/or pre-1800 coins/relics are. Thanks.

Here is a picture of the Buckle I found in it's display case. It is always nice to dig up some history and be able to share it with others.

So last year I am wandering around well off the beaten path in northern Nevada. I was targeting some old mapped prospects that turned out just to be natural features the mappers mistook for mining activity. Still, there is gold elsewhere in the area, and I am seeing lots of quartz scattered around. I wandered for miles swinging the Garrett ATX with one of the new 11" x 13" DD coils. This particular area had some hot rocks that were bugging my GPZ 7000 but which the Garrett tuned out entirely, so I went with the ATX. Garrett ATX in the Nevada desert Hours go by with not a single signal. Then I get this soft loud signal in the middle of nothing - no sign of human activity of any sort. It is strong but not a sharp signal, so I figure it is something large and deep. I start digging and it is deep. I am thinking maybe a meteorite? Or can I dare hope for a large nugget find - no, I tend to not let my thoughts go too far in that direction.... but still........ Close to two feet and this pops out of the ground: Looks to be an aircraft 20mm cannon round, probably WW2 era. I imagine somebody was flying around out there decades ago and fired off a round, which ended up punching into the ground where I found it. Who knows what the real story is, but it got my heart pumping and was the only find of the day.

It was a Great day trying the nox out in the fields and woods

Good day all. I found this button at an old home site where military buttons and an old eagle sword plate dating back to the mid 1800s was found and never identified it since it is worn. IT could possibly be a 2 piece button because there is a ridge on back but might be one piece as well.Thanks!

Had some business to do out in the country over the weekend and hit a recommended spot that produced in the old days. It's been hard, hard hit, so hard hit it was left to wither away. I don't mind taking a crack at those kind of sites. At any rate, I gave it a try for a few hours and was pleasantly impressed with what I was able to dig up on this site left to die. I think I may have dug a half to one of those cheap stamped brass 49er buckles, but this one is a plain Jane. Also got a civil war era eagle button but it's seen better days. Some kind of neat buckle all twisted up, but the prize was a surface find - I believe that tiny bottle is an opium bottle? And of course, leave it to me to find a merc that's likely 100 years newer then the site!!! The canslaw was punishing!! Not too many small arms shells, zero shotgun shells (amazingly!) but some BIG OLD LEAD (bottom) !!! As large as a couple of those pieces are, there could be anything from a gold coin to a silver dollar still out there IMO ? Aside from aluminum, not many conductors left! This poor eagle button: Felt good to get out!! I did a lot better at the sale I was picking stuff up from, but there's nothing like detecting old sites HH, Cal

Well for me at least ? So another 2 hour hunt at the pounded out early 1700's Hole, abandoned prob around 1850 or 1860. I Kept circling in the general vicinity of the home site and found a few more buttons and lead bullets. I had a faint but audible signal which read 13/14 and from a good depth out came the little Georgian strap buckle. The buttons were reading at 9/10 in Field 2. The little buckle might not be a silver coin but I'm totally happy that I found it. I've never found one so small or seen one to be honest! I think the conical button might be militia issue as I've had them before with militia insignia on the front. I like that button because the shank is Wayyy off centre! I guess that one was made on a Friday ? I thought I might be out this weekend but its rain/thunderstorms both friggin days ? Good Luck to all who get out! I'm really starting to think this Nox 800 is going to be one heck of a ride! Oh, penny in there for scale. HH Sillllvar

I had intended to go to the beach today...easy and relaxing digging is just so irresistible. Last night I had readied the Equinox 800, CTX and beach scoop in my shop in preparation. During the night as I slept voices kept telling me "Screw the stupid beach and take the Equinox to the foot hills and try it out in some real dirt" Gold nuggets and relics were calling for some reason. I didn't expect to find much...mostly lead bullets etc.... maybe a Chinese coin if I was lucky. And to tell the truth I was not in the mood to dig bird shot today so I hunted mostly in field 2 and Park 2 I put the 800 in gold mode 2 for maybe 5 minutes then switched back. First came the Chinese coin...nice to get one intact...I'd dug one in pieces a few minutes earlier. Then I decided to hunt some tailing piles and I was elated to get the powder flask...an hour or so later I was hunting near a creek so I could retrieve an ax head I had dug last year and left it on a fallen tree. A solid 12 on the equinox...at first I thought I had a small gold coin due to the serrated edge... But hey i'll take a gold ring any day. This sucker is old...the Chinese mined this place and I have yet to find any silver coins here. There are gold nuggets few and far between plus the place is riddled with lead shot of all shapes and sizes. Grass was tall which made for challenging hunting. The ring came from the other side of the creek near the tree in the middle. Good luck and HH! Park 2, Auto GB, Sens 22, reactivity 6, iron bias 0 I had to auto GB often due to soil. Pic with the Sierra is a toast to the old timer before I covered the hole strick

Tom and I got out for a few hours after work yesterday to one of his "back-pocket" spots that's been well worked over the years. It's getting stingy with targets, but I still managed to get a few keepers, including the oldest seated dime I've found, as my previous oldest seated was an 1840 half dollar, and an 1840 seated half dime. Hunted in Field 2, auto GB, noise cancel, 22 gain, 50 tones, multi-freq, default settings for everything else. If anyone has any idea what this do-hickey is, I'd greatly appreciate an ID. It's about an inch long, and the ID of the circle at the top is about the diameter of a U.S. nickel: Big ole piece of lead was super deep (and super disappointing at the reveal), two old pieces of green copper, we find at Spanish era sites. The large piece is 4.75" long, surprised that wasn't dug up long ago, but just goes to show that there's still potential for large silver, or relics to still be there. Nice old late 1700's/early 1800's flat button: And the grand finale - lol This seated dime was deep, came in as a high tone whisper, and even the pinpoint audio was weak/soft. I've been fooled with plenty of deep iron that sounds similar, but this sounded good enough to go for, took several shovel loads of dirt to get to it, and finally the pin-pointer was sounding off as I saw a dark black disc fly by in the dirt movement. I felt around for it, and located it, and before looking at it I felt it to see if it had a loop as I suspected it was going to be a button, no loop, OK, time to check it out and it was an 1838-O seated dime!! Thanks for looking and HH, Cal

I am loving my Equinox 800 relic machine (soon to be my Equinox beach machine and my Equinox water machine and also my Equinox park and gold machine). Hit the PA site I lovingly refer to as the relic hunter's amusement park which has been the site at which I have obtained several firsts and bucket listers including my first CW plate of any kind which I posted a few weeks ago. I have hunted it the last few times with the Equinox and it sets up well for that machine. For relic hunting, I generally favor Field 2 at the default settings. I have been experimenting also with Park 2. While the default settings for both are similar, there is definitely a difference in the underlying Multi IQ secret sauce based on the way the targets sound and also the way they hit the targets. I found Park 2 to hit a little bit harder on higher conductors, but this could just be my imagination. In this field, I like the Field 2 disc breakpoint at 2 because hot "rocks" in this field (from steam tractor coke tailings) come in at 1 consistently, and the Field 2 breakpoint is 2 vice 9 for Park 2. This is somewhat of a moot point because I generally run All Metal, but occasionally cut in disc when my brain needs a break and just listen for high tones. But the jury is still out as far as I'm concerned as to which of those modes I prefer most for relic hunting. I set up the machine to have the "main" program be Park 2, but with some Iron Bias cut in (3). I have Field 2 loaded up in the User Profile slot without modification from the defaults. In this manner I have a setup where I can quickly interrogate a target with or without iron bias with just a press of the User Profile button. Works great. I also cut in GB tracking for both modes in this hunt. The field has mild mineralizaation and Ground Phase variations typically seen in a plowed field with different crops and it worked well. Well, Equinox delivered once again. Scored a beautiful 1858 Seated Dime (she turns 160 this year, no wonder she is sitting down) and my first Rifleman's Eagle Button ("Eagle R"). Rounded out the hunt with a minie ball, a Williams Type III "cleaner" minie ball (my first Type III), and another Eagle button. Not shown are a 1936 Wheatie and various tiny non-ferrous odds and ends including lead, brass, and copper fragments. Pulled some large ferrous objects too as I had the time to chase some iffy signals and did so. Large, flat iron rings high and forces me to investigate, but in all metal, you can hear the iron grunt too and know you are likely digging some iron and not a masked keeper. But if you have the time...dig 'em because you never know... The site really helps, I have had success here with the Deus as well, but no doubt the Equinox can, will, and has delivered the goods and I gain more confidence with it in every successive outing. HH

Finally got a 2 hr trip to a cw site its slim pickins,I've put in 12 plus hrs on a football field size area and a buddy everytime.anyway I was running field 1,sensitivity 20-22,recovery 6,iron bias 1,everything else factory the bullets or lead pretty solid 18,buttons 17-18 which I didn't expect I dug a lot of junk anywhere from 12to16,17 looking for a button didn't expect same number as a bullet but that's what they were and solid.im really getting the feel of the machine and learning the chirps and beeps that grass make,a actual target definitely jumps out more than just swing noise I feel pretty confident with the nox and shes super comfy for me to swing I've heard tail of folks saying shes nose heavy but to me shes swings real nice.happy hunting,Alabama finds btw near huntsville

Hit up the same site as last week. Started with the Tejon and big coil, got the Reale. Switched back to the Deus and ellptical cool, to work the heavy iron. Video coming soon.

A little background on this particular "test" site that I take every machine to that I've owned over the past 12 years since I got my first detector. The site has both mineralized soil, and mild EMI, which some machines handle a LOT better than others. First I tried a Fisher C$ and Minelab Sovereign, and maybe got one wheat penny (C$ was shut down from the EMI). I figured there had to be more there, but it wasn’t until I got the CZ70 that it opened up. Someone had cleaned out the top 6” of targets, so anything left there was either deep, masked or both. First trip with the CZ was like Christmas! After 5-6 trips the CZ played out. Then every new machine I got I’d take there, and see what it could find. The first few trips there with the F75 did well, took my Etrac there and only got one wheat and a maverick bakery token. Then for about three years it petered out, it would take everything I had busting my butt to eek out one IHP or wheat, but silver dried up for about three years. I still figured there had to be more. When I got my Red Racer, I did a shoot-out between it and my (at that time) beloved F75. I first detected it with my F75 LTD2, and got nothing, only iron grunts, zero conductors. Then I switched to the Red Racer and pulled two silvers, an IHP and wheatie. It was an eye opener, first silver in three years, and not one, but two AND it was on basically my first hunt with the Red Racer. Then each subsequent trip with the Racers the site was back on, and not all the old coins were deep, several were masked with iron that prevented other detectors from getting them, but thanks to Makro's world class unmasking capabilities my site was back on. Matter of fact I had my best day there with my Racer2, something like 12 period coins in one hunt including four silvers, it was simply unbelievable to me that my pounded site, that I'd practically gave up on, produced this many coins in a 3 hour hunt. As you all know these sites don’t exactly replenish themselves with period coins, so for the Equinox to do what it did this weekend is beyond impressive, eight DEEP period coins in a three hour hunt is fantastic! For this site I used Park2, and ran it hot with the gain between 22-24, even was able to run it at 25, but found it started to like deep nails at 25. By the way, this site is loaded with old square nails. The original building that was there burned down in the mid 1800's, and I suspect that they razed the burned remnants around this site, and dumped fill dirt over the razed burnt remains when the built the replacement building went up, as once you get down to around 10" - 12" you seem to hit a sea of square nails. Never have found a seated at this site, it's certainly old enough to have them, but I suspect they are beneath this sea of nails. This was a deep mid conductor signal tangled in heavy tree roots. Little did I know how deep this would turn out to be! Between my Lesche shovel and digger, and a lot of patience (and a few curse words thrown in for good measure!) I finally pulled brought this sucker back to life, it was a dateless buffalo nickel! This is what was in that monstrous 10" deep hole! Total take for this hunt (3 hours) was five teens wheaties, a dateless buffalo nickel, 1902-S Barber dime (yeah!!!), 1936-S Mercury dime, some kind of silver button (that sucker was DEEEEEP), a poppers wedding ring, DEEP civil ware era (?) two piece Navy cuff button (this thing is going to LOVE buttons), and two suspender buckles/clips. Now I will say that the non-modulated audio on shallow stiff is a major PITA for deep turf hunting, so I did dig some zincolns, and shallow clad This was my second hunt, which I did in Field2. It's a little fresh water beach area that I've pounded over the years. Haven't found a ton there, few wheats, mercs, some rings in the water, and some 1800's relics, but I love the history of the site, and figure detecting it will eventually pay off with something really good (that hasn't happened yet, but I know something really good has to be hiding out there, probably in the water though!). I've never dug this many wheaties there in one hunt, and I love the wheatie with the iron fused to it! Also got a nice antique looking sterling silver ring and a 43' silver war nickle: As I was heading back to the car, I ran into another guy detecting there with a White's MX Sport. Was a pretty friendly guy, and we started chatting. He knew about the EQ800 and said that would be his next machine. He was hunting in the turf, not the beach. I told him I was hunting the beach and he told me that I wouldn't find anything there because he'd already cleaned it out Now truth be told, I was a bit impressed with his MX Sport as he'd just dug a 9" deep merc when I came up on him. He said he's mainly a prospector and had done a lot of dredging in California but when they shut it down, he moved to Alaska. Interesting guy to chat with for sure. HH, Cal PS - I did encounter an odd issue. About an hour or so after one hunt, I powered down my detector and headphones to take a health break. When I went to power everything back up, the headphones refused to power up. I'd charged them up the previous day, so unless when I did a quick hunt little hunt the evening before, the headphones didn't get powered off and drained down, then I can't quite understand what happened. I'd get no response at all from the headphones when trying to power it back up. I plugged them in to my charger (iPad charger) for a while and they came back to life. Odd

Finally got a break in the rain in not so sunny Sunnyvale, and got an invite from some detecting buddies to go explore some outback sites. First site they'd already located an old homestead but were searching for two more. After a brutal (for me) hike up a mountain, we didn't find the homestead that was supposed to be up there, but the view was spectacular, so still worth the effort. Did a total of a solid 8 hours of detecting at various spots, and lots of hiking around. I had to dig all of this: To get this: We hiked back down to the site that they'd already found and after hours of finding nothing but bullets, and shotgun butts, I finally got my coil over some keepers. First was a well worn 1886 V nickle, it was so worn that I initially thought it was a token, then a shield nickle, but then in the sun I could see the V. Just a few feet away from that I got the badge looking thing, no idea what it is, looks like a Navy or Marines insignia, anyone have any ideas? Also got a Southern Pacific RR seal: And a couple of buckles: We went to a second site, it was purportedly an old picnic grove. The day before a 1907 $10 gold eagle was dug there, and numerous other coins over the years have been dug there, from reales, seateds to barbers, one guy got a V nickle, the other guy got a toasty IHP and I got the buckle above there, it's marked PAT. MAY 2,1990. The oddball looking buckle looking thingy above it is marked PAT DEC 21, 86. I've never dug so many beer cans, I stopped counting at a case I ran the EQ800 in Field2, noise cancel, GB, SENS between 21-23, everything else default. Didn't seem like I dug any more iron then any other machine, got a couple of nails, and a couple of BIG pieces of iron. If anyone has any idea what that badge looking item with the anchor on it is, I'd appreciate it. HH, Brian

Heres a few I found with 800...

Went down to local park today, across the street the city is clearing off a wooded lot to build a dog park, the park is old so i knew this property is to, its tough to detect because of equipment rutts and roots, so i get back in it and started seeing tell tell signs of old house site, plants blooming in the middle of the woods, broken glass, its beside a creek aswell. Only had bout an hour but its def a old 1800s homesite found very old brick also. Also i found a spoon that just seems to be very old, and what looks like melted lead. Also there is a good size deppression in the ground that i wonder maybe a cellar. Very rocky under the dirt but im gonna hit this place as much as i can before the dog park is built, best part is i work for the city so i will be on the property doing some work from time to time.

I went back to Ohio for a week to show off our new little boy and see family. I begged and pleaded until Steph finally gave in and allowed a day of metal detecting. I took back the Nokta Impact and Fisher F22.. I'm not going to go into the F22 yet as I haven't written up an article but I will say the Nokta Impact did absolutely perfect. When I lived in Ohio I was mostly a relic hunter. Overlaying old maps and hunting in fields where old houses and other things once stood. I was really excited to see how the Impact would do. Well, it did better than I could even imagine! These sites are tough to hunt. Although little to no modern trash you have to fight the heavy iron debris to get to the good finds. Where the house or structure stood is where you will just find a ton of nails and iron, I call this ground zero. When I am hunting ground zero I have always used smaller coils with any other detector I've ever hunted with these sites. With the Impact I was able to run my 11 inch coil in even the heaviest of iron with no issues! I've talked about it a lot but worth mentioning again. The Iron volume setting is amazing! I was able to hunt with the iron volume turned way down or off. I preferred it on to know when I was in the thickest of iron but it was nice not to have to listen to it at full volume. As far as finds - I only managed a few buttons, musket balls and my friend managed a nice button and large cent. I found lots of small copper,brass and lead scrap. I have pounded the two sites I was at in the past. This past fall when I went back they were the only two fields around that the crops had been taken out of and this time they were the only two I could find that weren't flooded! I feel like I'm destined to be stuck in these two sites every time I go back!

New permission finds with my vaquero

First, a special thanks go out to Steve for sharing his tips and knowledge on the forums! I followed his suggestion to use Field1 vs Field2 for relic hunting, and it did in fact seem I was digging less tiny bits and bobs, and I only got fooled by a few old nails. The next time I have more time to hunt, I will likely detect in Field2 and cross-check targets with Field1 to see first hand the differences. This is a site that my hunt partner and I have been wanting to try for a long time and we were able to sync up yesterday for a few hours to give it a whirl. He used his trusty Exp2 and me the EQ800. I used Field1, changed it to 50 tones, did a noise cancel, ground balance, bumped up the sens to 21, and I was off the the races. I'm amazed at how quiet this detector is. A few times I ran it over the eyelets in my boot to make sure it was working To be honest, one of my favorite features on this machine is the incredibly accurate pinpointing. Not sure if the depth meter is accurate, but I'm not a depth meter watcher, as I mostly hunt relic sites, so I'll figure out the depth when I dig the target, but the pinpointing is exceedingly accurate, and easy to use, don't have to look at the screen, just zero in on the BLAST and dig, I absolutely love it! No time for videos yesterday, just a quick hunt to check a long awaited spot to determine if it's worthy of further research, and spending a future weekend detecting it. I'd say from just the few hours we spent there, I am eager to return! Tom found the best find, an 1849 French 1 Franc, no doubt a gold rush era loss, and it's in beautiful shape, so likely brought here right after it was minted. Here's an example from online as I didn't get a photo of his coin, but this is what it looks like: Surface eyeball finds: Here's what I found, and right out of the gate I dug five oldies in a row, so I knew this was going to be a good site if we put the time into it. Bits of green copper, we find these kind of old, hand worked copper losses at Spanish/Mission era sites, but this is not one of those sites, it's something entirely different. I like that little shield shaped thing, it had an iron pin through it at the top that rotted away, so was likely a little latch on a lid of a box, or something like that I would guess: This was my first target: Rimfire shells and a "Davies" four hole button: Here's that little latch type thing again. Does anyone have any idea what that interesting looking item next to it is? OK, I don't normally get excited about digging nails, but these (the first two) are incredible, hand made bronze nails!! Does anyone have any idea what the bronze item on the far right is? It's not a nail, the top is flat'ish, I have no clue, but it's interesting and dripping with age IMO: I thought this gold disc was, well, gold when I first dug it, but I'm thinking it is actually modern, as it's not heavy and appears to be plated, the disc in the center may be newer too? Nothing earth shattering, but I think this site has the potential to have something special, perhaps a gold coin or other interesting old historical relics if we put the time into it. Thanks for looking and HH, Cal

Lot's of buttons.

I followed TNSS's lead and did a hunt entirely in Field 2 today. The site is a late 1800s rail road spur that serviced a large mining town. The mine produced large amounts of copper and silver. They smelted the ore and then shipped it by rail to a refinery. They spilled a lot of the "raw" smelted metals while adding cars to the line at this spur. The site is very polluted. We have hunted it with various machines. The Nokta Relic, Impact, and AT-Gold did pretty good here sifting through the trash BUT only if they were wearing small coils and hunted slow. The Equinox excelled here with the stock 11" coil and I found that it performed better hunting fairly fast. Settings were Field 2, Speed 6, 50 tones, Iron Bias 2. The 6" coil will be killer on a site like this one! I found my first Indian Head Penny (1905)! That probably sounds funny to you guys that hunt back East and find IHPs all the time. The trade off... I can drive 20 minutes from my house and find gold nuggets. It's a cross I will have to bear I guess. A few lead box car seals, part of a baggage tag that says Prescott on it, a brass or copper piece that looks like the hinged top from a drawing compass or the base of a hand held fan (?), suspender buckle, and some really odd shell casings....303 British (with bullet), .56 Spencer, and oddest of all a .38-55. The large chunk of smelted metal in the upper right corner acid tests as silver. It IDs in the mid 30s on the Equinox. I've found some other nice chunks of smelted silver here. The black rock-like object (looks natural) comes in at a solid 12 on the Equinox. Not sure what it is. When I hit it on the grinder it is solid metal of some sort (very heavy) with a bluish hue kinda like the color steel becomes when over heated with a torch. Anyway, Field 2 seems to like the low conductors best and is very immune to the hot rocks from the track ballast (which gave the AT-Gold and the Impact fits). Nice and sparky with Iron bias set to zero but tames down when set on 2 as TNSS mentioned. Dean

Dug one at a time.