Smallest Target Ever?

[Lead Detector]

I was detecting a wash a couple weeks ago with the nokta gold kruzer. I had a faint signal worth doing the foot scrape on. The target got crisper. Scraped an inch or two off the top...target moved. Now it's in the scoop doing  the hand to scoop process of elimination. I get down to the last bit of sand in the scoop, but there is nothing larger than the sand in there, but still an obvious crisp target. Now I pour the rest onto the top of the coil and start splitting it in halves. Sliding the target around until it's the only thing left under the tip of my finger. It's sticking to my finger and still gives a nice crisp zip zip. As far as I  can see it's a grain of sand. I had to wipe it on my knee to remove it from my finger tip, never to be seen again. Anyone have any idea, what can give such a crisp signal, but be the size of a pin head? 

[Valens Legacy]

Nice find and they do add up over time.

Good luck on your next hunt.

[Redz]

Iron from a can, or a tiny grain of iron nickel from a meteorite

[Beeper Bob]

look at at through a magnifier for a ID

[klunker]

 Iron. It gives a much stronger signal than gold of equal mass. I once had to chop through 2 brontosaurus and a pterodactyl fossil to remove a square nail head at 37 feet down. I was quite disappointed.

[Dutchman4]

Yep, Iron.  Almost every tiny target that I have had trouble recovering or lost, has been iron. 

Small rusty iron targets sound like a nugget a lot of the time.  If I cant see it in my scoop after sorting then I just drag my scoop across the magnet on top of my pick and it will drag any iron target out of the scoop and mystery solved.

[Aureous]

A magnet on your pick assists in those occasions... 

[tboykin]

Put a magnet on the stick end of your pick, not the head. With a 3 ft handle you don't even need to bend down to retrieve shallow iron. I will boot scrape, then flip the pick over and mash the magnet around like I'm making mashed potatoes. When you hear a little CLICK it's usually a boot tack or piece of wire. But sometimes it's too small to see.

After spending five minutes chasing tiny ferrous signals around a hole the magnet seems like a much faster approach.

[phrunt]

yea, I never understood people putting a magnet on the pick's head, that's the spot that does the heavy work and gets smashed around, and it's awkward to use a magnet there too with the pick head getting in the way preventing you getting it into tighter places, I drill a hole into my picks handle end and epoxy the super magnet into the handle, its sheltered in there, safe from high impact and makes it nice and easy to use just running the handle end around picking up the bits of metal.  I cringle every time I see a magnet on a pick head.

The super magnet goes about an inch deep into the handle, so makes the entire pick end very magnetic.

[geof_junk]

11 hours ago, phrunt said:

I cringle every time I see a magnet on a pick head.

I have used both methods Simon. My only method now is on the pick outer head that I have moulded in fibre glass bog for cars.  It has remained for more than 10 years. The advantage is I can wipe my hand over it to easily remove the hot rocks and steel/iron debris.  ............. So Simon for your benefit I will refrain from posting an image. 😉