Interesting Question- Your Method OR Settings For Heavy Trash/Iron Or VERY Rough Ground?

[Critterhunter]

Saw this just mentioned, and thought it would be a good lead up for a thread. What's your coil, method, or settings...For heavy iron or other trash? Besides the obvious- using a smaller coil, one of the ones I've heard and have used over the years, is using a much lower sensitivity settting to "settle down" the bumpy ride from iron or other trash. You see less deep, or perhaps "light up" less surrounding trash, and so it makes the machine ride like it's bumping along hitting less trash.

Only thing I can offer, besides that, is that in particular on the Sovereign, turning Iron Mask OFF (thus less prone to EMI or iron falses), along with turning Silent Search ON, will smooth out the ride a bit. Have I done that? VERY rarely, because with iron being nulled out in all honesty I find this machine, even with Iron Mask ON, to be one of the smoothest rides I ever saw in a detector. Not only that, but it's ability to seemingly penetrate the worst of my grounds with rock solid penetration and stability is also cause for why I never tried to do better.

Now, have I sought out more stability in rare situations? Yes, but never by turning Iron Mask OFF or such, but rather just by clicking over to AUTO sensitivity when the ride due to iron or rocks (in which case often meaning hot rocks) got too bumpy. Mainly for me, I'd do that on old trails with numerous tones (up to say bolder size) were bumping me around. In that case, being hard packed ground, depth wasn't primary to me, but rather stability was, and then I often found Auto sensitivity seemed to "ride the ground" much like auto ground tracking on other machines would.

One thing, I've seen some say lowering sensitivity helps with riding over iron. Yea, I bet that might be the case. I plan to do Auto, versus low, versus high sensitivity settings, and see just what does that in those situations. I know Auto seems to "adust" in fastly changing iron conditions the few times I used it, much like an Auto ground tracking, to where it isn't blinded by glare as it hunts for the next target. You?

 

[deepdiger60]

What i do not understand is why ? would anyone want to metal detect a area like that in the first place and waist half the day trying to figure out if they have a good target or just iron junk , my setting,s would be my Sov GT set to off !! and move on to a much better area where i would enjoy the day finding good targets . JMO Jim

 

[Critterhunter]

Seriously? You mean that? Man, some of my best finds have come out of spots where the minerals or iron were so bad. Those are places that others, especially with other machines other than a Sovereign, fear to tred. I enjoy the heck out of bad nightmare spots like that, one reason being not only because the Sovereign will find stuff that other machines I owned couldn't in such places, but also because I get a bit of extra satisfaction when I do pull a keeper out of such a place.

I'm heading to one today for an hour or two. Can't hunt too long as I've got a B-Day party to go to later, but want to try out the 8" Tornado there, as this site's "got it all" in terms of iron in good ground, and yet iron free areas but with the ground changing to hot rock like sand/tiny rock material. I've pulled coins out of that iron areas in the good soil, and also coins out of the bad ground where on some prior machines I put through their trials there they either couldn't see a coin, or would give the worst scratchy/iffy coin hit you could imagine even at very shallow depths of say 3 to 4".

The GT and stock 10" coil got more out of there, but first time I hit it with the 15x12 I got a standing liberty quarter at like 7" (on end I believe from memory), and first time I hit it with the 12x10 I plucked a nice old silver ring out of there (also standing on end). The spot is small enough to where I have gridded it with every new machine or coil that has come along in my line up over the years, so I like to judge what a machine or coil can do there in contrast. In the other thread about the 8" Tornado I just posted about how I intend to run the 8" Tornado through it's paces there and see what she can do...

This spot is so "dead" and harsh in spots that I've got one friend I always hunt with who simply refuses to go back, having never pulled anything out of the site. That kind of thing makes me smile, because it gives me extra motivation to see if I can pull a few more keepers out of it and prove no site is ever worth giving up on. Those are the ones where it's the challenge, and quality versus quantity, that I get more fun out of. I might walk away with nothing to show for it for several hunts at such a spot, and when I finally do pull a keeper out it might have took all day to just go home with one, but that's the "White Whale" thing to me...

It's the journey and not so much the destination, as they often say that anything worth achieving isn't ever easy to do. Reminds me of what I recently heard about a study on people born rich versus earning it themselves. The ones who earned it were much more happy in life, while the ones who didn't seemed to take it all for granted and didn't get much satisfaction out of it.

 

[deepdiger60]

I understand what your saying Critter i just dont like messing around with iffy signals although i have done it and 95% of the time it exactlly what i thought it was iron very shallow , you need to come here and hunt these very old fields in my area most are over 300 years old first farmed by the early settlers 1640,s and up just make sure you bring a wheel barrel for the trash LOL no lie it is infested and i have seen the Sovereign pick out the good stuff . Jim