Hi,
Just a report of my own experiences over the last couple hunts of a residential yard in my home town. I think this is relevant to the thread.
Monday evening I got permission to search a yard of a mid-century house near a university campus. It has been a rental for some time now, and obviously had hosted many parties, by the number of bottle caps. Some areas of the yard below the grass level were red with rust, even though the bottle caps had long since disintegrated. Most of the clad coins came out red as well.
That evening, I used the 5.3 coil and the "Hi-Pro" program. I picked out a number of coins (nothing too exciting) but then decided to go to the "Deep Silver" program to discriminate out some of the bottle caps. By the end of the evening I had 63 coins, including 6 wheat cents and 15 clad quarters.
I returned on Wednesday, got permission again, and this time used the DD coil and started with the "Deep Silver" program. I pounded that yard going back and forth, north and south, east and west, believing that with 6 wheats from Monday, there must also be silver in there somewhere. I'll tell you, that DD coil loves those bottle caps. I was getting some very solid hits that could have been silver quarters or halves, hitting at 88 but mostly at 92. It's hard to pass those by. Soon my bag was bulging with bottle caps. I switched back to the "Hi-Pro" program and the mid-range began hitting on cents again. Only two clad dimes, no clad quarters for the whole evening, but SEVEN more wheats! Now I have 92 coins from that yard, including 13 wheat cents, but still no silver. The depth of the wheats found with the DD coil was not really any different than the depth of the wheats found with the 5.3. I'm not sure how I missed 7 wheats while I was digging the 63 coins, though. I guess it supports the idea that you can't get everything in one trip.
So, both coils did very respectably in this trashy yard. The 5.3 was able to discriminate the bottle caps much better than the DD, but the DD found more wheats, even on a second visit, than the 5.3 did the first time around. "Hi-Pro" gave me a better chance to find wheats than "Deep Silver" seemed to because a lot of them registered better on the mid-range. I have to believe that if there are 13 wheats, there's gotta be silver, but I have exhausted my limited strategic capabilities--in other words, I have no idea what to do next. I do intend to go back and give it at least one more try, but I'm not sure what I can do that will be any different than what I've already done.
The bottom line for me on the two coils in a trashy yard is that at least so far, both gave similar depth. The 5.3 discriminated bottle caps better. The DD covers more ground and picked out some mid-range coins that I missed with the 5.3. I think that if you are patient and willing to dig everything, you really can't miss either way, but you might end up with a bag full of bottle caps! I can't seem to get the bottle cap rejection to do very much....but that's another thread for another day.
OK, that said, does everyone agree that when you find 13 wheats out of 92 coins in a yard, there's got to be silver there? And if you do agree, what would you do next, considering the strategies I've already tried? If you don't think this applies to the thread, then please just send me a PM.
Thanks,
Mike