Question for all you Ace 250 Pros!

[cgibson]

I have a question about the Ace 250. I have been hunting for about 5 weeks now, and have been very sucessful. I've pulled about 450 coins, prob 70% pennies but I've gotten lots of quarters and dimes too. Not too many nickels because I'm lazy with diggin the trash. So here goes.

When I hunt the local parks, pretty much all my coins are 2" or so and I pinpoint em with my Vibra 570, pluck em, on to the next target. I read on the forums about the older sites and people pulling older silver and such. I've hit a few older sites now, and I mostly get junk deep. I'll pinpoint a solid dime at 6"+ and alas, its a big old can (why is it showing a solid dime sometimes and something else sometimes?). I'll get a solid nickel signal at 8" and alas, it's an old beever tail pull tab. I know these sites have something, because I've pulled several wheats at one site, but no silver. It seems when I get a deep signal, it's always sporadic on the display. I've dug 8" nails that show as a solid quarter. Then I'll dig a slug of something that jumps from dime to quarter to halve dollar. Anything deeper than 7" ALWAYS shows up as a sporadic signal. I know my detector is working fine because I've dug all these coins, it's just that there always 1" to maybe 4" deep.

When you guys go to an older site, what deep signals do you dig? Which do you ignore? I have the standard coil and also have the sniper coil (man I love that thing). Local parks I kill, it's just the older places I'm not sure what I should be looking for as far as digging older coins go. The sites where I've pulled the wheats they gave a signal identically to a Zincoln, just showin 4" instead of the normal 2". I've grabbed a few Zincolns that deep as well.

I've looked on other forums and there always talking about whisper signals and VDIs from the other types of detectors and seem to be able to show deeper signals a lot better. Is the Ace 250 up to the task of snuffing out the older deep stuff, or is this better suited for a better detector?

So my question is, when you go to say a colonial site, what do you dig (as far as what the display is telling you)? And please don't say to dig every signal, cause almost all the older sites I have went to so far I get a 6"+ signal jumping around the display every 2" (and this is on coin mode, not All Metal).

One other question, when jewelry hunting, when you hit a ring, does it give a solid signal or jump around from nickel, to tab, to penny, etc? I have strayed from digging all the junk so far but I need to start looking for the GOLD!

Thanks for your time guys!

 

[Mick in Dubbo]

I'll be honest here, I don't hunt deep in old sites much at all, but a couple of pointers to help you out. If a target is that deep that the meter can't help you, then you are looking for 1) a repeatable signal, and 2) You can size the target with you pinpoint. Once you have engaged the pinpoint and centred the target, pull it back towards yourself. If it the audio drops off quickly, it's a coin size target. If it hangs on for heaps, then it's a coke can.
Rings can show up any where on the meter. it just depends what it's made of. At 3+ inches they tend to give multiple hits, but generally give a fairly solid meter reading. Pull tabs tend to be more erratic. deeper than 3 inches, they tend to behave more like coins.
As far as beaver tails go. I have got a solution.
it sounds like you are off to a good start.
Good luck and happy hunting.
Mick Evans.

 

[lazyaussie]

hi cgibson i"v hunted for old silver with the ACE250 the best tip i can give you is to bury an old silver dime in the back yard about 6-7 inch deep pack the dirt down hard & practise listening to the signal in pinpoint you should get a nice sharp signal only as big as the coin. cans will give a long signal as wide as the can or bigger it"s all in the pinpoint mode that i make my decision to dig.
On very old sites it gets harder the deeper the coin gets the harder it is for the detector to ID i listen for high low ( bell tone - iron ) or a bell tone swinging across one way & mid to low tone the other way again pinpoint plays a Major part in weather i dig or not. if it's very deep you"ll hear a very scratchy signal in pinpoint it"ll be hard to pinpoint ( headphones are a must for this ) it"ll be so small you can hardly hear it. this method can get very frustrating so it"s not for the faint hearted & i only use it at old sites with little or no modern trash as digging 22 bullets & small bits of aluminum at 3-4 inch gets very tirering also you"ll dig heaps of rusty iron but that's just part of the fun .
hope this helps get you first silver.
lazyaussie

 

[Uncle Willy]

On suspected can-sized targets raise your coil several inches above the ground, even up to a foot. If you're still getting a signal you can pretty well dismiss it as a coin. Centering targets correctly is critical with Garret coils and failure to do so can throw off readings. Also the 250 is a motion detector ( the faster the coil moves the deeper it goes and the better it discriminiates ) so use the "twitch" on those deep, sporadic, tricky, signals. If you haven't used the twitch before just center the coil over the target then whip it side to side in rapid, short strokes. This will generally clear up most lousy signals.

If you get any wide signals that you think are junk, don't always assume this as coins grouped together or coins and junk grouped together will give this kind of signal. If they are shallow you can seperate them with your pinpointer. If deeper you will have to probe and hit one, remove it, check the area again and if the signal is still wide repeat the procedure over again until you can isolate the targets. No detector can give 100% accurate readings on targets only probabilities. The deeper the target the more difficult it is to ID. It's like being blindfolded and sticking your arm down into a 50 gallon barrel holding 500 goldfish and one black one and finding the one black one by feel only.

If your hearing is good nickels give a slightly different signal than tabs and you have to listen for it. I dig a lot of nickels and very rarely ever dig a tab.

Bill

 

[slingshot]

Yeah! right on about the nickel sound. They are usually wider (alas, so is the square tab that registers in the nickel area) and the other nickel "bad" signals have a "clipped" sound-like Bill said, you'll get used to it after awhile. And when you "twitch" it, the differences become more obvious-the nickel can sometimes become very wide.