Three Nuggets & A Relic

[Steve Herschbach]

Got out with Condor for a short hunt. High Sierras, moderately high mineralization, some hot rocks, but not too hot. This is a burn area, like burnt to nothing left but trees like giant black toothpicks. Almost everything at ground level is incinerated to dust. It was hot enough to melt glass into blobs. I'm going out of my way to describe what I am seeing and hearing for those interested in the detector.

I was able to run Axiom full out, Fine Mode, max sensitivity, Slow Speed, and manual ground balance. My go to settings. EMI was quiet, though I did get maybe twice a day some noise, which canceled out. Not sure what that was about. I can hunt with no issues within about 50 feet of Condor and his GPZ 7000. Maybe less but in general I stay away from other people when I detect. I ran entire time with 11"x7" mono coil, my favorite.

The ground was what I'd call lively, but not bad enough to drop out of fine mode, or lower the sensitivity. I just did basic ground balancing, because I like keeping things minimal when detecting, and like being on the edge, which means I do not mind investigating the oddball ground noise or hot rock. I got a few rocks but they were like right there, just nudge them aside. I also got a few soft hits on what turned out to be little pockets of incinerated ground, dig in and just a fine gray material. So shallow I could scrape them out with my boot, and the signal would disperse. I'm sure I could have eliminated all this dropping into another mode or dropping the sensitivity, or both, but my style of detecting kind of demands I do this sort of thing, as long as it is not so much and so often as to be oppressive. Chalk it up to me and my "ride the edge" detecting style, not the detector itself.

I had no issues with charcoal of any sort, other than the little dust pockets mentioned earlier. I've hunted several burn areas now, and there is not much in the way of issues that Axiom can't deal with. In general it just makes for a bit livelier ground, most often exhibiting as small hot spots that disperse on digging.

The area has been hunted to death, not quite dead really, but typical lots of digging iffy targets and broken square nails, a handful of "bullet stuff" (actual bullets, shell casings, and the worst, fragments of jacketed bullets). And a relic - woo hoo! Little brass belt buckle that has some details so I sanded it a bit to make visible for the photo. Have not weighed the gold yet, will add that later. Little pickers.

[klunker]

 I recognize the relic. it's a special hook for lifting 1000 lb ore buckets from a deep mine shaft. It's about 18" wide by 20" long, made of forged steel and weighs about 25lbs

[strick]

Nice buckle Steve the gold is a bonus...need to check the Garret forum now more often I see....good to hear that the Axiom is working for you. 

Strick

[Sourdough Scott]

Nice finds Steve. Nice to see you again up there. And I finally got to meet Condor in person. Tell him thanks again for letting me try out the X Coil. I appreciate it.  

[Gerry in Idaho]

Nice gold Steve,  love the buckle suspender thing doodad.