The weather finally cooperated enough to get out and give my F5 a go. I was quite impressed. The two penny's a 1916s and a 1911s and the bullet shaped slug all came from about of 8" deep. My small shovel has a 8" long blade and it took a little more depth than one plug cut to get them out of there respective holes. The soil in the area of this hunt is about a foot deep of dark loamy soil. A far cry from the highly mineralized soil in my test garden. For what its worth the 1911s cent VIDs as a zink penny as do many if not all IH cents. It's something to keep in mind if your favorite program is set up to notch out zink penny's when hunting old ground. Notice the square nail. The image on the right demonstrates the learning aids I use when calibrating my VID and TID learning curve.
Went out again yesterday and hunted in the same general area, wish I had some descent finds to show for the time spent but I just couldn't seem get my coil over anything other than a few old deep nails and more small lead pits. The evidence indicates they must have pored a few of there own bullets back in that era judging from the amount of molten lead droppings found, plus some years ago I pulled off the beach what turned out to be a badly corroded brass bullet mold. But we did have a good time and there's always next time. Right?