Fun hunt, lots of clad...haven been to a park like this in quite awhile..

[REVIER]

Still continuing to learn and enjoy my F5, Nel Sharpshooter coil mounted for this hunt.
So as I said before it can find coins.
Yesterday I went back to a very tiny park I have only visited once before.
A small triangular shape in the crux of three roads passing by snack dab in the middle of a neighborhood in an old section of the city.
Dedicated in 1907 but I think people have been hanging out here since the 1800's and the amount of trash is daunting, very typical of a 100+ year old park in an area where most people don't seem to understand what a trash can is or how to use one.
I found a bunch of clad in my last trip here a few years ago but this time I went looking for older coins even though I know many have hunted here before for decades.
No older coins on this trip except one 50's wheat but I just wandered around hoping to get lucky, I will go back and continue to see what is hiding.
There might be jewelry hiding here too, not easy to find in this trash heap but someday I might get lucky.
This park also has a small tot lot with not pebbles or chips but just old dirt which I haven't seen in years...most all of them around here in every park now has that stupid rubber padding so it was a pleasure to hunt in one of these again.

Because I was in old coin mode I specifically set the F5 up to find it using my Silver Slayer Settings.
Disc up to 65, notched in nickels only so those and the higher number coins should be noticed more easily without having to be bothered so much with the crown caps, foil, can slaw and all the other junk.
I find by doing this it stays crazy quiet because just like on the F70 not only does the thresh and gain control have a lot to do with mitigating chatter but the disc does too.
I was able to get to 95-99 on the gain and peg out the thresh in most areas even though this park is in the middle of a neighborhood with homes, many apartments and a restaurant close and surrounding it with EMI hitting it from all around.
I did try normal settings for awhile near the end of this hunt also with lower disc but the gain had to be lowered to the 70's or below and the thresh needed to be set down to -4 to -5 and it still was nowhere as quiet and stable.

Then I went hunting.

It's been awhile since I have been anywhere that I found so much clad, what you see in the pic is just some of it, there is many times more there I just didn't dig on this hunt.
Once in awhile I lowered my disc down to a little under 60 in case there were some Indians hiding but there were just too many zinc area signals.
I dug a few and just pushed the disc up again, I will look for those older coins on other hunts in the future.
In the tot lot I found several dimes and copper cents, that one wheat and one quarter hoping to find maybe a silver ring but found none, there were a ton of nickel area sta-tabs, however.
None were a super solid 30, all jumped a bit more indicating they were tabs but I dug them anyway.
The more trash I clear out the more I hope better signals will move to the forefront on future hunts.
For a bit I also tried those same Slayer settings but this time I just notched back in foil hoping to find some small gold or maybe a chain.
Again no luck but there were so many signals here, not done with that area by a long shot.
The cool thing is the F5 worked like a dream, super silent except when I hit foil or high tone coins and I found a lot of copper cents and dimes doing this plus tiny bits of foil.
I love how you can set this thing to target just one specific area like foil, or nickels or tabs...it zeroed in on the foil and high tone coins like a laser with excellent solid signals on the coins and yet still a bit jumpy over the foil which is behavior I like to see.
Pretty sure if I run over a good jewelry target in foil, even a chain, it will be a more solid signal I will have no choice but to dig.
I even tried all metal in that tot lot for a short time, this thing is filled with zincolns and a ton of other junkier signals but most of them I just left buried to spend my time and energy going after better targets.

My regular parks close to me are fun but nowhere near the amount of targets this thing holds, I think I will be spending a lot more time here in the future and who knows what will show up...eventually.
Plus the clad, I will clean it and spend it on something, probably related to this hobby.
I have found enough gold, silver and clad over the years to pay for most of my detectors and accessories so nice to know I have another site I can loot to my heart's content.

Over $4 in clad, a useful bottle cap opener, a stainless steel bangle, a religious pin and a lot of fun was my take on this hunt, and I wasn't there for very long, just a few hours.
Looking for much more as time goes on.

 

[fwcrawford]

In reading the first part of your post, I was beginning to think you were at a park that is near me that is exactly like what you are describing.. small, trashy, old and surrounded by old houses!!
Only difference is the one near me is square.
I'm am sure from what you have written, there are indeed some very nice targets in there.. it will take some work, patience, and concentration, but I believe you will start finding some nice coins and possibly jewelry.
I started searching the park near me some years ago and like you was amazed at the amount of clad I found the first time.. to me that meant no one has detected it for a great while.
I got all the clad out that I could and then started concentrating on the softer signals.
I slowly started finding wheats pretty regular, then finally silver starting showing up.
I found many nice coins in there.... I counted up to 100 wheats I found, then stopped counting.
My best find was a 1915 Barber quarter in very good condition.
Keep in mind that with alot of disc., you will still need to slow down.
I was using a MInelab Sovereign at the time and I had to slow way down to unmask coins.. many of them only read good while swinging from one angle.
If there are old sidewalks there, make sure to search carefully along the edges of them... I had great luck there.
Just keep in mind that all the easy signals are gone now for the most part and people have given up on this site probably, but I believe from what you describe, there is much more to find there.
You just need to do something different that the others did when they searched it.
I think once you start finding older coins, you will be surprised at how shallow they are and wonder how they got missed.. most of my finds were 5-6", but masked.. that is why they were still there, not because they were deep.
Keep us posted on your future hunts at this site.. ( where exactly is it?)
Just kidding... good luck to you!!

 

[RLOH]

I have been following your progress with your new F5 and figured that as a coin hunter you would fall for it. It truly is one of the finest coin detectors made. I have had three since they came out and consider the F5 to be one of my all time favorites. I always keep two detectors and I thought the two I had(Nox 800 and Apex) would keep me happy for the time being.

But, last week I got a call from a buddy that I sold a F5 to over four years ago. He was upgrading and offered my original F5 for a price I could not refuse. Well, I now have three detectors and one must go. As much as I like the Apex, I am going to sell it keep old reliable.

I also had a Sharpshooter on both the Omega and F5 as the coils were interchangeable. My experiences mirrored yours with the Sharpshooter. It was just as deep or deeper than the stock 10 inch coil and worked much better in my 3-4 bar soil.

I almost always used the F5 in three tone and found the audio to be some of the best I have ever used. A good pair of headphones is a must to hear the deeper faint ticks that are usually a deeper coin. I am just about ready to shut down for the winter so it will be interesting reading about your exploits with the F5.

 

[REVIER]

Very similar experiences on all of that...like we were twin sons of different mothers and thanks for your insight.
Nice to know if works so well in other parts of the country, and that others noticed that the Sharpshooter is something else mounted on this thing.
Also that 3-4 bar dirt, a whole lot of fun hunting in that and for a brief time I had a vacation when we moved out west but we came back so I just have to deal with it.
Nice to have a tool now that seems to act a whole lot more normal around here in that kind of dirt than most of my others.
I got this thing for hunting jewelry but I have done a complete 180 on that now, it will be used for both jewelry and coins.
So far I have tried a few settings, a few way different one for jewelry and coins but the coin settings can find jewelry and the jewelry settings seem to find coins easily so I guess it all works no matter what I do.

D1 and D2 supposedly are deeper according to Mike Hillis but I think I like either multi tone option better so far, my deepest targets have been found using them so that is confidence building, for sure.
If I can get to the 6-8" level here accurately and get around all the masking there is a whole new world open to me down there.
Still want to spend time using the others and all metal though, experimenting is super fun for me and who knows how I will feel about all of them in the future because I started using 4H most of the time when I got the F70 and thought that would be my prime setting but nowadays all metal or 1 tone is what I use more and prefer them to any others.

I can hunt through the winter here, I prefer it to summer hunting by far, watch for more of my reports and live through me vicariously if you would like.
I hope to do you proud.

 

[REVIER]

In reading the first part of your post, I was beginning to think you were at a park that is near me that is exactly like what you are describing.. small, trashy, old and surrounded by old houses!!
Only difference is the one near me is square.
I'm am sure from what you have written, there are indeed some very nice targets in there.. it will take some work, patience, and concentration, but I believe you will start finding some nice coins and possibly jewelry.
I started searching the park near me some years ago and like you was amazed at the amount of clad I found the first time.. to me that meant no one has detected it for a great while.
I got all the clad out that I could and then started concentrating on the softer signals.
I slowly started finding wheats pretty regular, then finally silver starting showing up.
I found many nice coins in there.... I counted up to 100 wheats I found, then stopped counting.
My best find was a 1915 Barber quarter in very good condition.
Keep in mind that with alot of disc., you will still need to slow down.
I was using a MInelab Sovereign at the time and I had to slow way down to unmask coins.. many of them only read good while swinging from one angle.
If there are old sidewalks there, make sure to search carefully along the edges of them... I had great luck there.
Just keep in mind that all the easy signals are gone now for the most part and people have given up on this site probably, but I believe from what you describe, there is much more to find there.
You just need to do something different that the others did when they searched it.
I think once you start finding older coins, you will be surprised at how shallow they are and wonder how they got missed.. most of my finds were 5-6", but masked.. that is why they were still there, not because they were deep.
Keep us posted on your future hunts at this site.. ( where exactly is it?)
Just kidding... good luck to you!!

Like you read my mind, sites like this take time, patience and a whole lot of effort cleaning up the trash while waiting on the good stuff to surface and I am more than willing to do that.
Pretty sure most hunters gave up on this place decades ago after they cleaned out the easy to find silver with mostly the older Whites machines, if my experience at other old parks around here holds true they gave up on this place way to early so looking forward to finding a lot of great things and then not mentioning it to any of those guys.
I am sure they would be shocked if they knew what I have found at other parks they abandoned, this is a prime site for history to repeat itself.

This place has history some good, some bad.
One of the original old parks built in the city but by the 80's the neighborhood declined and it became a haven for prostitutes and drug users.
In the 90's the neighborhood associations had enough of that and made big efforts with help from the police to change things and then a lot of money was invested in some improvements, that tot lot, rock ledges, seating and walls, metal tables for sitting, landscaping and lighting.
The last time I was there dozens of homeless seemed to make it their base of operation so that's why I never went back but that has changed now, too, so now it is a great place to spend some time.

Nice to have a new and different place to go now instead of my other regular parks which are fine but getting a bit stale and boring.

 

[Ronstar]

Ok. Now I may have to buy the sharpshooter for my F5. Mine came with the 11” DD and a 5” and no complaints. I think the lower freq may get silver and clad faster than the higher freq F75 but no actual proof to report. Meanwhile, up until today, I was too apprehensive to knock out too much targets in fear of losing gold. The reason is the “park” I play in is 15ish acres of flat manicured grass. Hard to go back and work that area a second time and when I first got that machine I wasnt educated enough to know that gold can fall into the junk category so I simply ignored foil, tabs, and zinc.
I know now that the intramural fields has four basic hot zones for finds so hopefully maybe once or twice more opportunities to get out before its too cold or snowy to get out. Now I will do like Revier suggests and see if my streak of luck continues.

 

[REVIER]

Like I have said when I hunted in great soil out west that 10" elliptical and the small sniper concentrics worked for me better than well.
That 10" was the only coil I used for months in the F70 and man did it find me a ton of coins and jewelry both shallow and deep.
Soon enough I got a hold of the 11" and the small round Fisher DD's and I was shocked pleased at what they could do also.
Eventually coming back to my messed up dirt here in the SE. I got the Sharpshooter as a lark for the F70, expected nothing, I traded my Vaq to a dealer because it liked all this iron I deal with around here a bit more than I liked but I had some wiggle room left to pick up something else so I went for the Nel because I was curious.
Didn't think I really needed it, my other three coils did me right but once I mounted that Nel I was shocked again.
As deep or deeper as any of my coils in this dirt, matched the 11" DD in depth and deeper than the elliptical but best of all it quieted my F70 down...a lot, which let me use more and most times higher settings to find even more.
Speed, separation and accuracy was as good if not better than any coil I have used before, even now that coil is mounted on my F70 most of the time.

When I got the F5 I remembered all I had been through with that Nel coil in my dirt so I got another one to match the F5, I wanted that matching frequency for sure as I never was a fan of mismatching frequencies.
I wanted optimum performance.
I assumed it would work well on the F5 also but I never suspected it would work this great.
I was impressed with its performance on the F70, I am way more impressed with how well it performs on the F5.
The depth it gets in my soil shocks me as does the stability and accuracy at depth, as far as quiet hunting if I thought it quieted down my F70 on this one it goes beyond that.
Many times using certain settings at several sites I can max out the thresh and gain and I get nothing but signals on targets my coil rolls over.
Kinda shocking every time I experience this and the depth it can get to doing this is phenomenal in my challenging dirt, in better and more mild soil I assume it could do even beyond that.
If the F5 is great, decently stable, fairly quiet and nice depth this coil mounted on it turns it into a beast.
I tried the same two coils you have plus three others off the F70 and this coil outperforms them all by a large margin in every way that matters to me...matters to anyone I would assume but I can only talk about how well it works here in my area.
I can only predict the $110 I spent on this coil will be recovered easily in the coins and jewelry it can find, probably quicker than I think If just a few nice pieces of jewelry show up.

If you want to use your F5 to look for jewelry efficiently using any coil my Slayer Settings could help.
Turn up the disc to max and just notch in one of two sections, one might keep it the quietest, let you max out the gain and thresh and get the deepest.
Try nickels, you should find all the high tone coins and silver and nickel area targets should stand out like they had a K Mart blue light spinning beacon above them.
Try foil at another time, tabs at another, zinc should get a chance but aim for the high 40's to low 50's area unless you like to dig lots of zincolns.
I use multi tones so I don't have to look at the screen as I would have to using D1, D2 or all metal.
Go slow, the more disc you use the slower swing the F5 evidently prefers and acquiring solid targets is the name of the game for us jewelry hunters.
If you hear a good tone, even if it seems a bit jumpy after looking at the screen, stop and examine it from more than one direction with short quick side to side movements of the coil.
Many gold rings I have found were not super solid at first, chains too, but after a few seconds of closer examination I was able to dial them in to a much more solid signal and they went from targets I would have dismissed to targets I had to dig and I was grateful I did just that on every one.

This is cherry shooting for jewelry to the max, yes you will miss most other targets this way but there is always another time you can come back and look for other things in other areas.
High efficiency jewelry hunting, if you can wrap your head around doing it this way I believe the numbers say you will ultimately find more jewelry in sites that have that than using a full range of targets hitting you all at the same time.
Less mental fatigue, more and better chances of noticing that one great jewelry signal.

If you decide to do it this way let us know how it works.
The F5 with any coil should prove worthy utilizing this method and might just surprise you.