I know how you can hunt and not dig screw caps.....

[Anonymous]

Just let me hunt right in front of you. <img src="/metal/html/lol.gif" border=0 width=15 height=15 alt=":lol"> I took my Explorer II out for my "maiden voyage" today. After having read posts for the past several months, the weather finally let me take a field trip. I went to an old park here in town that I KNOW still has lots of old buried coins. I still manage to pull some out with my Advantage when I go there. But today it was Explorer day. I tried to run in a program that I had "learned" from various posts, but gave that up after a half-hour of total confusion. Fell back to the factory preset and made a couple adjustments to the threshold and sensitivity. I also tried to run in smart mode, but just kept sneaking over to digital to see what the numbers actually were. All in all, it was an interesting day. I managed to pull out a couple dozen coins, but only one was older than me. A wheat from the 30's. The rest of it was memorials and clad. Well, that is not true. Most of it was screw caps. Seventeen of them to be exact. And 9 pull tabs. Here is my question.. The screw caps sound like the coins to me. The numbers were close as well. Most of them registered 7 / 28. Would you have dug them or did I forget to do something that would have told me they were junk? Thanks. HH Randy

 

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

you can't notch those out without notching out good coins too.
there's no shortcuts if you want to make great finds.
if you want to give up some great coins and not dig screw caps, then notch them out. the choice is yours.
i have found that screw caps hit like IH's. i took a sample of about 25 dug IH's, and then took my dug screw caps, (i save the junk to test with), and tried to notch out the screw caps in the learn function using the small cursor block, and then only about 20% of the IH's would come in. the rest were rejected.
coins hit all over the screen on the explorer. shallow IH's hit in about 4-5 different places to begin with. other coins bounce around as well, depending on depth, wear, and ground condition.
the explorer's ID is not accurate. it's not perfect.
notching some unwanted targets out can help some when digging shallow targets in a trashy site. but, more than likely you'll be leaving good targets in the ground.
i dig them. and i dig pulltabs in old sites if they're deep enough, because it's where $5 gold coins come in.
to answer your question, if i'm in an old site.....i dig them.

 

[Anonymous]

Tonal responses is the secret of an Explorer and by all means can be altered by junk nearby. In most cases however you can tell a indian head, wheatie or silver coin just by the tone. Of course the silver coin could be a also a clad dime up, but would register a bit different on the crosshair screen. I really feel your tonal hearing is not as good as many so of course advantage would be to the user who can tell various tones well..In essence especially on iffy calls one must use the tone, digital number and crosshair position on the screen..and I guess a bit of luck doesn't hurt either.

 

[Anonymous]

Randy,
I dont think you will be able to get rid of all screw caps, but can get rid of quite a few of them like we can with the Sovereign. First thing is some will sound the same as a IH or the new zinc penny, but read a little differnt on the digital numbers.I find many are not over 6 inches deep, so any deeper signals that sound like screw caps or IH we will dig. I too tried to build a pattern to get rid of them, but felt I probably would lose too many of the IH and some of the older wheaties.
In most cases I find a IH or new zinc penny or even some of the older wheaties will read conductivity of 24 or 25 with the ferrous at 7, now most of the screw caps will read the same ferrous number of 7, but the conductivity is 27 or 28. The 26 conductivity and ferrous of 7 has been mostly screw caps,but have seen some newer zincs read there too.
Using digitals has helped me tell the difference in many of the trash items that are close to a coin signals, but it is not 100% correct either. On my XS I never used the digital, but with the XS I and the dual digital I find I can ID much better those close signals using the ferrous readings and I find if it is deeper target and sounds good I will be digging if the digital numbers are close to the ones I look for.
Rick

 

[Anonymous]

1919 merc.

 

[Anonymous]

Like D(Va) I dig them because it's very close to where some IH's hit. Sometimes depth will also effect how a a coin sounds depending on your soil, etc. I've dug some pretty deep coins that IMO sounded close to a square tab. Alot of time I have a good idea it's a screwcap because of how wide the signal seems. Keep swinging away and pay attention to the tones and try to judge how big the target is... you might not pick it up right away but it does come with time.
-Bill

 

[Anonymous]

Screw caps usually will pin point in a vary small area, they won't pin point lkie a coin which has a wider sound. When they are deep you can confuse them with IH pennies but listen to how they sound in pin point. Randy (NJ)

 

[Anonymous]

Screw caps fall in the range of penny to silver. There is no fool proof way of getting rid of them and not missing that once in a life time Morgan dollar but if you really want to cherry pick, my advice is as follows.
TONE: silver coins will normally come in soft and high tone. Screw caps will come in high tone and LOUD. so loud that it almost sounds as if you EX is overloading.
DEPTH: most screw caps will come in shallow. Forego the clad and dig deepies coming in 6 inches or deeper. Thatll get rid of most of the screw caps.
NOTE: the more succesful hunters in my part of the country dig most everything above iron.