F2 Iron Bias Non Ferrous Targets

[Jeff McClendon]

I have been suffering from plantar fasciitis and torn ligaments in my left ankle for about 6 months. The plantar fasciitis has cleared up on its own. The torn ligaments have not yet healed so hunting with a dig it all approach just hasn't been possible since last March. Walking is iffy enough, but lots of getting up and down is very painful. So, I have had to limit myself to shorter outings and lots of cherry picking.

I tried an experiment using the F2 iron bias feature during my recovery for some of the parks I hunt that have high iron mineralization. I used Park 1 and Park 2 with F2=4 and just concentrated on obvious no brainer signals. Deep or shallow didn't concern me, just the quality of the response. I hunted with both zero discrimination and with half of the iron range rejected = -9 to -6. My target recovery of deeper low to mid conductive targets pretty much ceased to exist during this time.......deeper silver jewelry and coins along with any depth of higher conductive US modern coins (wheats, copper memorials, clad dimes and quarters, Kennedy halves and modern "gold" President and Sacajawea dollars) was seemingly not effected.

Today, I hunted an exact area that I had hunted a month ago with those settings except that I hunted with F2=0 and dug every target that sounded good. I had already cleared out the higher conductive clad so none was found. I tested every low to mid conductor target from +6 to +22 (the gold and small silver jewelry range) that sounded decent using F2=0, and then switched to F2=4 and F2=9 before I dug the targets. All of these targets which were clear and obvious targets using F2=0 were beyond the range of my handheld FTP Tek Point pinpointer that was set on maximum which usually reaches coin sized targets down to 3.5 to 4" in this park. All of the targets in the photo except for the first two modern pull-tabs (bright silver and red surface finds) were recovered at deeper than 4". Some were as much as 8". They all sounded very good with repeatable signals in all four swing directions (+), and had dig me gold range numbers using F2=0. Using F2=4, all of these targets were iffy at best and the deeper ones sounded mostly like iron. Using F2=9, all of these targets were mostly iron with just a hint of low to mid conductor tones and corresponding numbers. 

It is no wonder that I previously walked right over these targets since I had limited myself to digging only excellent sounding targets due to my injury. Even if I wasn't injured, I am not sure that I would have dug these using F2=4. No way using F2=9.

Two of the nickels are fairly old for the Denver area, a 1949 and a 1960. Both were 8" deep and sounded very good using F2=0. The big stainless steel ring (+8) and the Avon gold plated junker (+14) were 6" deep and sounded fantastic with F2=0. The two .925 small silver jewelry items (+22) sounded great using F2=0 and were 5" deep.

So, in higher iron mineralization, are my results an outlier or is using F2 iron bias above zero just too agressive on low and mid conductor non-ferrous targets? Comments, disagreements and Pooh Poohing are welcome.

 

[GB_Amateur]

Great post, Jeff.  Your study is way more controlled than anything I've done, but our results are consistent.  (My soil is 2-3 bars on the Fisher F75 and Gold Bug Pro.)

First off, I hate missing an old coin.   Hate it!  Secondly, I really like nickels and I almost never ignore 12-13 dTID sweetspot signals on the ML Equinox.

I heard good things about the new F2 Iron Bias when it came out back in second half of 2019.  (I think I have the date about right, but maybe not.)  I would try it, play around with both FE and F2 settings after I got hits.  It never jibed with me.  I went back to it 3 or 4 times and I just didn't get a good feeling.   (I've had similar experience with hunting in 50 tones.  I use that for investigating targets, especially nickel-zone targets when pulltabs are present, but I never was able to mesh with it as a serach mode.)

I recall one early find where, F2 set away from zero gave a lot of iron tones on a deep nickel (how deep?  I don't recall but somewhere in the 6"-8" region).  That soured me but I still experimented after that.

BTW, I have iron in my sites.  Is it bad?  Most of the time it's not terrible and the more I 'practice' (by digging iff signals) the better I get at figuring out from the tone volume, quality, etc.) what nails often sound like.  But vertical nails??  They aren't common but they sure sound good.

Bottom line for me:  I'll gladly dig a couple dozen nails that sound like they might be coins rather than leave a Jeffie (or Buffie or V) in the ground.  A lot of detecting is personal preference, i.e. what one is comfortable with, and I excercise that option a lot.  So for those who find value in Iron Bias settings above zero, I'm not about to try and talk them out of it.  However, I do expect reciprocation.  ?

[Chase Goldman]

Agree, good post.  All I can say is that I still dig a lot of nickels with IB F2=6 on land and at the beach.  I know the beach nickels are deep. I can’t say that across the board for the land nickels, but who knows how many deep nickels I’m missing.   I really am not interested in digging falsing iron so I am more willing to take a chance on the odd, deep missed nickel as long as I can still scarf up the silver, so I am the polar opposite of GB_Amateur and will retain IB F2=6 as my default.  (Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it Chuck).  The key point is that Nox gives you the option to set it up to your liking to trade deep nickels for no falsing or vice versa.

[Jeff McClendon]

14 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

Agree, good post.  All I can say is that I still dig a lot of nickels with IB F2=6 on land and at the beach.  I know the beach nickels are deep. I can’t say that across the board for the land nickels, but who knows how many deep nickels I’m missing.   I really am not interested in digging falsing iron so I am more willing to take a chance on the odd, deep missed nickel as long as I can still scarf up the silver, so I am the polar opposite of GB_Amateur and will retain IB F2=6 as my default.  (Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it Chuck).  The key point is that Nox gives you the option to set it up to your liking to trade deep nickels for no falsing or vice versa.

Thanks for the responses Chuck and Hugh.

The nickels and especially the pull-tabs are an indicator for me. They are not specifically my target. Gold jewelry is my target at this site. I know what happens in this park on weekends and dropped jewelry is a given since there are at least 20 volleyball nets setup throughout the spring, summer and early fall and have been for years. I have found recent jewelry and coin drops at this park. If I am missing obvious deeper nickel and pull-tab signals at this site which appears to be the case, I am missing deeper gold and small silver jewelry targets too, due to an iron bias setting that is set too high F2=6, by default in every mode……….just so folks won’t dig rusty steel crown bottle caps and complain to Minelab.

I once had knee surgery and specifically told my surgeon not to put a external pain med pump in my knee that I could use if the after surgery pain was too much for me. I woke up and he had installed the pain pump. I was pissed. It fell out constantly and left a dime size bleeding hole in the side of my knee. I later found out that he went against my wishes so I wouldn’t disturb his weekend since the Red Sox were playing in the World Series. OMG!

[Chase Goldman]

8 minutes ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Thanks for the responses Chuck and Hugh.

The nickels and especially the pull-tabs are an indicator for me. They are not specifically my target. Gold jewelry is my target at this site. I know what happens in this park on weekends and dropped jewelry is a given since there are at least 20 volleyball nets setup throughout the spring, summer and early fall and have been for years. I have found recent jewelry and coin drops at this park. If I am missing obvious deeper nickel and pull-tab signals at this site which appears to be the case, I am missing deeper gold and small silver jewelry targets too, due to an iron bias setting that is set too high F2=6, by default in every mode……….just so folks won’t dig rusty steel crown bottle caps??????

Great point, wasn’t thinking of that in my context because it is either coins or relics mostly and not so much jewelry.  But I certainly don’t want to miss gold coins, trimes, or half reales either - the one gold dollar I snagged was with a Deus at my favorite site that has given up three $1 gold pieces so far (two found with Deus’s and one found with an Equinox).  So that’s a consideration, for sure.

BTW what was the composition of those rings and pendants you found, Jeff?

 

 

[Jeff McClendon]

18 minutes ago, Chase Goldman said:

 what was the composition of those rings and pendants you found, Jeff?

Like I said in the original post: in order left to right, stainless steel, junk metal with gold plating, and two very small .925 silver that come in at 22 on the Nox.

Every target on that plate could have easily been gold.

[F350Platinum]

Thanks for the tests and info, Jeff, et al. This is what I was asking about a while back, but I still can't be sure I'm missing deeper gold. I love missing bottle caps on the beach but at what cost?

I've dug plenty of nickels and even a V nickel using F2=3 on the 600. Guess I'll have to go over those places at F2=0 and see if I missed anything.

[Jeff McClendon]

11 minutes ago, F350Platinum said:

Thanks for the tests and info, Jeff, et al. This is what I was asking about a while back, but I still can't be sure I'm missing deeper gold. I love missing bottle caps on the beach but at what cost?

I've dug plenty of nickels and even a V nickel using F2=3 on the 600. Guess I'll have to go over those places at F2=0 and see if I missed anything.

My reason for starting this topic is to see what others are experiencing and not to presume that my results in higher iron mineralization are normal. 

Thanks for responding

[Chase Goldman]

 

2 hours ago, Jeff McClendon said:

Like I said in the original post: in order left to right, stainless steel, junk metal with gold plating, and two very small .925 silver that come in at 22 on the Nox.

Every target on that plate could have easily been gold.

You got me - TLDR and missed that paragraph