Finding Musket Bullets / Balls On Fields With Equinox 800?

[schoolofhardNox]

8 hours ago, Hello said:

 

 

 

 

schoolofhardNox: "Also plowing can bury deeper the round ball you are looking for."  

Yes, and I guess the machines can also unfortunately break the bullets? Sometimes it can be positive if you are lucky, that the machines, on the contrary, plow up what you want to find so it will be easier to find, right?

Yes the plow helps you as well. Some finds do come closer to the surface. For small items like round ball, the plow doesn't hit them very often.

schoolofhardNox: "I find the smaller round ball are harder to find as they get deeper. So, the lower numbers are usually the small ball. "

Good to know. The small bullets, are they usually from musket pistols, rather from musket rifles?

The musket bullets you found from 1637-1812, how did they look in general? Where they round, and did they look like musket bullets/balls, or where they flat and rather unrecognizable metal objects? After they have been fired and lying in the ground for 200-400 years, maybe they have usually changed a lot and do not look like typical round musket balls/bullets?

The small ball can either be from a pistol or can be fired from a Musket. More than one can be loaded together and fired together

Here are a couple of shots of freshly dug round ball from May 26, 1637. It was a one day battle. These round ball were found in areas along with brass kettle points during a withdrawal from the battle by the English. Some are flat on one side but usually you can always see some of the round part of a ball no matter how hard it hit a rock or tree. Most are round and all are usually white from oxidation.

schoolofhardNox "A: Yes, go to 20khz or 40 khz if you are having too much trouble in multi near power lines."

And if too noisy, then go down to 15 kHz or 10 kHz etc as Badger-NH wrote, right?

But 20 kHz lean more towards lead (like musket bullets right?) as Badger-NH pointed out, but just a slight advantade over 10 or 15, the differences is not to big right, is that your experience too?

Experiment with each one. Your conditions will tell you which one is better.  There is no right or wrong one to choose. Only the one that works for you.

And then first use a recovery speed as you wrote 3, or 4 as Badger-NH wrote, but then if too much noise then raise it to 5-6, and in extreme amount of iron, raise to 7 or 8, you do that too?

Recovery speed is not for helping with noise. It is for helping you when there are a lot of targets close together. It makes it easier to hear close together targets. You can either raise it to separate targets or just swing your detector slower.

 

[nordic]

Just to add, worth checking detecting laws, archaeological zones in Sweden. If you find a lot of musket balls, the site could be of an archaeological/historical interest and one can get into trouble detecting there. Some countries are stricter than others.

[Hello]

On 8/24/2020 at 5:56 PM, GB_Amateur said:

Difficult to say without being there with you.  One thing I've learned (and have to remind myself) -- once you get the hang of a detector you can quickly tell a true target from a false one, but it does take time.  If I get a true target, there is some kind of metal or magnetic mineral there.  Digging and finding nothing means I've likely misjudged its location, lost it in the removed dirt, changed its orientation to an undetectable one,....  The list goes on and on, but it didn't disappear and it wasn't a ghost.  ?

We don't know your Swedish soil so it's hard to help you with things like ground mineralization and hot rocks (assuming you even have the latter).  You seem rather new to detecting -- so welcome -- but if that's the case it might be that you've taken too big of a step out in the wilds (woods and fields) where uneven ground, for example, can make things more difficult.

Do you have access to milder landscape, such as parks, schools, even the yard of a residence?  If so you may be better off in the long run putting some time into hunting those first, as training for your more ambitious sites.  (Of course know the laws because some European countries seem to be pretty strict from what I've read.  Again, you might be the first Swedish detectorists to post here so I don't know what your situation is.)

I suggest starting in either Park 1 defaults or Field 1 defaults if you can practice on some 'easier' sites as I've suggested.  It sounds like your intended use is relic hunting which might mean Field 1 (default is just two tones -- low for non-ferrous and high for ferrous) is the better training choice.  Park 1 has 5 tones -- each tone covering 10 of the 50 digital Target ID channels.  (Always refer back to the User Guide until you have it practically memorized!)

The other thing to keep in mind is that lower gain/sensitivity settings are easier to use.  I think factory default is 20, but going down to 15 will still finds lots of targets for your practice sessions.  For the first 1 1/2 years I used the Equinox I didn't go above gain/sensitivity of 20.

You gotta learn to walk first before you try to run!

 

Good points GB_Amateur, thank you.

I do not know if I understand your definition of "hot rocks", can you explain it? (When I search for the picture, some music group comes up) In any case, I dug up large stones that the machine found and made noises from.

I went up in a dense forest, by a big mountain, when big rocks, many roots, etc., so was probably a difficult terrain. But I later tried with the detector on a field, set to Field 1 and multi, and then I found a lot easily, found old bullets from Swedish mauser rifles among other things, so it went well. Thought about what you guys wrote in the thread, tried different frequencies, etc. And I think if I found such bullets etc in that field, it is probably  that I can find the musket bullets in the similar field, because they are probably coarser than the bullets from mauser gevers.

 

 

[Hello]

On 8/25/2020 at 2:40 AM, schoolofhardNox said:

 

 

Thank you for the help schoolofhardNox.

The two last pictures are those also musket balls?

The last one looks just like a metal thing I found! But I have no idea of what it is or how old it is etc!

 

[Hello]

On 8/25/2020 at 4:58 PM, nordic said:

Just to add, worth checking detecting laws, archaeological zones in Sweden. If you find a lot of musket balls, the site could be of an archaeological/historical interest and one can get into trouble detecting there. Some countries are stricter than others.

Good point Nordic, thank you.

If you want to be discreet when looking for metal. Do you guys think it might be a good idea to take a thin garbage bag around the detector, so it is not visible what it is you are holding? It should be fine to search anyway, or do you think it damages the detector's ability to find metal? I'll try it.

 

[schoolofhardNox]

44 minutes ago, Hello said:

 

Thank you for the help schoolofhardNox.

The two last pictures are those also musket balls?

The last one looks just like a metal thing I found! But I have no idea of what it is or how old it is etc!

 

The last two are the metallic arrow points. They are from the year 1637. You will have to research your history to see if you had metallic arrow points  in your country.

[schoolofhardNox]

44 minutes ago, Hello said:

Good point Nordic, thank you.

If you want to be discreet when looking for metal. Do you guys think it might be a good idea to take a thin garbage bag around the detector, so it is not visible what it is you are holding? It should be fine to search anyway, or do you think it damages the detector's ability to find metal? I'll try it.

 

Before you get in trouble with the law, you should research and see if what you want to do is illegal in your country. If you get caught, you may end up paying a lot of money and possibly jail time. Here in America if you detect some very important battle sites (like Gettysburg) and get caught, they will take your equipment, possibly your vehicle and you will pay a lot of court and legal fees to get them back. As far as being visible with a bag on your machine, you can not hide a detector with a bag. Everyone will know what you are doing. I feel a bit uncomfortable giving you any more advice on detecting if you are going to do illegal activities with it.

[GB_Amateur]

1 hour ago, Hello said:

I do not know if I understand your definition of "hot rocks", can you explain it?

(I did a Google Search with the following terms:  detectorprospector.com, Steve Herschbach, hot rocks, definition and found the following thread.  Steve does a better job than I can explaining them.)

 

[nordic]

3 hours ago, Hello said:

Good point Nordic, thank you.

If you want to be discreet when looking for metal. Do you guys think it might be a good idea to take a thin garbage bag around the detector, so it is not visible what it is you are holding? It should be fine to search anyway, or do you think it damages the detector's ability to find metal? I'll try it.

 

I find most countries have similar laws, strict laws in fact, in regards to detecting. Where I live, "good" detectorists and, generally, ones respecting the heritage, try to stay away from such sites. Fortunately, we have online maps that highlight such areas. Good way here is to check the map, ask for permission if possible, then go. Different countries have various descriptions of term "archaeological item", which can be vague at best, but generally excavating "archaeological" items is forbidden. Musket balls are few centuries old and may qualify as archaeological items, and if found in large quantities, the place may carry significant historical value. Excavating in such places, simply put, distorts and, even, wipes clues and the picture of the past of that place. So... it is not surprising archaeologists are not fond of detectorists ?  

Hiding it makes even worse. It actually takes the joy detecting away. Do some research of the place, ask permission if possible, and enjoy detecting.

 

Have a look through comments in this link. It gives clues about the law in various countries.
https://md-hunter.com/list-of-countries-where-metal-detecting-is-allowedbanned/