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bottle caps and pull tabs:ausflag:
- Thread starter emubob
- Start date
Yeah, thats a tough one...some of what sounds like junk turns into something gold...even a silver chain can sound like junk...I guess a good thing to do would be to not focus on the targets, but the location of them?
For instance, theres lots of pulltabs and generally ONLY pulltabs in certain locations, like around a picnic area or the sidelines of a field...however, you hit a pulltab signal all alone out someplace where theres none around, like out in the playing area, you better have a look...Sorry for the simplistic non-answer, theres lots of good books written by fellows that have hunted for years, and they seem to focus on hunting specfic locations instead of just hunting targets...they try to figure out an area and strategically hunt it...
Mud
For instance, theres lots of pulltabs and generally ONLY pulltabs in certain locations, like around a picnic area or the sidelines of a field...however, you hit a pulltab signal all alone out someplace where theres none around, like out in the playing area, you better have a look...Sorry for the simplistic non-answer, theres lots of good books written by fellows that have hunted for years, and they seem to focus on hunting specfic locations instead of just hunting targets...they try to figure out an area and strategically hunt it...
Mud
I run in Pro Zero most of the time. When I have the iron audio on, I can hear the difference between a bottle cap and a coin most of the time. When I heard what I thought was a bottle cap, I would dig it anyway to see if it was one, and usually it was, so I stopped digging those. I still get bottle caps, but not as much.
I've found just about every type of thing, but no gold. I may need more practice yet.
.
You may want to manually bump up/down your ground balance a smidge. That will give you different results that may help. I did that a while back and it made a difference, but now I can't remember which way does what.
I've found just about every type of thing, but no gold. I may need more practice yet.
.
You may want to manually bump up/down your ground balance a smidge. That will give you different results that may help. I did that a while back and it made a difference, but now I can't remember which way does what.
William-NM
New member
Manually lowering the ground balance by 5-10 points is said to increase sensitivity to higher conductivity metals like Silver. Raising it is said to increase sensitivity to lower conductivity targets like Gold. It can be frustrating in trashy areas, but Mud's right - if your research points you to an area with some nice oldies, you don't mind digging the junk so much. The 5x8 coil is nice for picking through trashy areas. I hunt a lot of old homesites and end up digging it all, 'cause I enjoy some of the old iron relics & toys. I recycle the buckets of crud in order to have my small revenge! 
I accidentally discovered a way to distinguish old rusty bottle caps from coins also reading as bottle caps. I was hunting some real old parks, just loaded with old rusty bottle caps several years ago, and was ready to give up as many others had. Something was strange about those bottle caps? Most sounded like coins in the ground. Once they were out of the ground, most would be sounding like bottle caps. But, the odd one, after missing it the first time with my digger trying to retrieve it, remained sounding like and was a coin. Why? My guess is that the copper or silver coins over time developed a layer of oxides around itself in the soil matrix. Some people have called it the "HALO EFFECT". And this developed layer changed the original conductivity from reading as a coin to now reading as a bottle cap. Well, if a person could break this halo while the coin was in it's original lost position, the conductivity should change it from reading as a coin to reading as a bottle cap or iron.
So, I spent the next hour stomping real hard on top of my bottle cap readings, and low and behold, out of some thirty bottle cap hits, 3 of them remained as a coin object, while the rest had changed their ID to bottle cap or iron.
So, in summary, if you don't want to dig all targets, or end up in a very old area littered with those old bottle caps, stomp your foot over the target real hard, the coin sounding bottle caps will start reading as coins or bottle caps or iron. Also, if you get iffy signals, the ones where the target bounced back between iron and coin, give it a stomp too! more often then not, it will now read as a coin or iron.
As far as pull tabs go,,,,,,if you tune them out, you may lose gold. Gold can be found reading just about anywhere on your meter, however, a majority will sound at or on that pull tab icon. A gold ring in the pull tab area tends to give a smoother, softer sound compared to a square pulltab.
So, I spent the next hour stomping real hard on top of my bottle cap readings, and low and behold, out of some thirty bottle cap hits, 3 of them remained as a coin object, while the rest had changed their ID to bottle cap or iron.
So, in summary, if you don't want to dig all targets, or end up in a very old area littered with those old bottle caps, stomp your foot over the target real hard, the coin sounding bottle caps will start reading as coins or bottle caps or iron. Also, if you get iffy signals, the ones where the target bounced back between iron and coin, give it a stomp too! more often then not, it will now read as a coin or iron.
As far as pull tabs go,,,,,,if you tune them out, you may lose gold. Gold can be found reading just about anywhere on your meter, however, a majority will sound at or on that pull tab icon. A gold ring in the pull tab area tends to give a smoother, softer sound compared to a square pulltab.
That's a good trick, John. I dig lots of pull tabs and the ones I hate worse are the ones with the big rings on them instead of the square. I can just about tell the square ones and the bottle caps, but those old pull tabs with the large rings fool me most of the time. The one time you don't dig a signal that sounds right is the time you will miss something good. I don't know about the bottle caps in Australia, emubob, but they sound louder than anything else to me and with the factory head phones that come with the At/Pro it sounds like Snark to me when I scan them with my coil. With the gray ghost amphibian head phones, it's just louder. A real rusted bottle cap will have the high-low sound but one that's not rusted is just way loud to me. Good luck & HH.
If the odds were that good, I would be wealthy. 
I dig so many pulltabs that I get nightmares.
I dig so many pulltabs that I get nightmares.
GroundScanner
Active member
Notching out the 80's will be missing silver and clad dimes, quarters and copper and wheat pennies.
true,but we don't normally have these targets here in Australia unless some American tourist with loose pockets rolls around on the ground after a night on the town.further to stomping on possible bottle caps,one would have to be carefull where this ritual was performed not wishing to be locked up in the funny farm by dancing up and down in a park muttering obscenely by a man truly not in control of himself and waving something around.just a thought!emubob
GroundScanner
Active member
Yes you are right , i wasn't thinking .
Let me start by saying I have no experience on the AT Pro. Having said that, I know when I used a dd coil bottle caps sang through as a good target. When I hunted with a concentric coil and my discrimination at IRON, the bottlecaps started to crackle in my earphones.
I know the ATP has concentric coils available. You might want to consider one.
I know the ATP has concentric coils available. You might want to consider one.
BigCatDaddy
New member
Come on filks, bottlecaps are easily identified with the Iron Audio. When you get over a suspicious target, watch the display. You will see a drop in the ID numbers, just a quick drop to a 16 or 18 or some other real low number. Switch over to Iron Audio On and you will get the low-high-low if it's a bottlecap. This is assuming you are hunting in Pro All Metal mode of course. I dig the odd one on occasion, just to check. I find the 5 x 8 coil is less sensitive to bottlecaps, just giving me a scratchy tone when I get over one. I run my Iron Disc at 35.
As far as pulltabs, the man who invented them should be shot. And if he's already dead, he should be dug up and then shot!! Wretched things!! But if you want some gold jewelry, you have to dig them. More than anything though, they mask good targets. Most of my gold ring finds have been in the 44-45 range for small gold rings or 66-67 range for wedding bands. This can vary to cover the entire 40 thru 70 range, but most goldies hit in the said ranges. The fact of the matter is, if you want gold, you must be willing to dig a lot of trash.
As far as pulltabs, the man who invented them should be shot. And if he's already dead, he should be dug up and then shot!! Wretched things!! But if you want some gold jewelry, you have to dig them. More than anything though, they mask good targets. Most of my gold ring finds have been in the 44-45 range for small gold rings or 66-67 range for wedding bands. This can vary to cover the entire 40 thru 70 range, but most goldies hit in the said ranges. The fact of the matter is, if you want gold, you must be willing to dig a lot of trash.
I use a concentric coin all the time on my AT Pro, and yes, the bottlecaps are much easier to ID.
Wandering Yoda
New member
Cool!! Thanks for the ID numbers BCD, I've been wondering what the gold wedding band range was.
I am using the 9" x 12" concentric coil. It gets great coverage, pinpoints great off the inner front coil and gets decent depth.
I dug a lot of bottle caps the last two days at the river and pull tabs of all kinds. The thing that drives me nuts is the 22 casings. They fall thru the scoop unless you lift the scoop quickly and dump it in the sifter. Some of them sound just like a ring. Most of the time when I get a high tone in the 80's it's a bottle cap, but I'm trying to rid the world of them by digging them. I've been planning to modify my scoop, but keep finding other projects that are more important until I'm in the river.