Test Garden Result is Disappointing

[Neil in West Jersey]

After reading about all of the different tones on the Excalibur 1000, I decided to do some of my own field testing in the yard. I took a silver half, a clad half, a silver dime, a clad dime, a large cent, a wheat cent, a zinc cent and a few other gold targets. The book claims that there are different tones for silver vs clad and copper, so the test was with the two half dollars and the large cent. I cannot hear any tone difference between the three targets, nor could I tell the dime from the half dollars. Am I missing something?

The thing that I was really disappointed about was the response to small gold. I was told that the Excalibur is awesome on gold. The target used was a tiny 14K charm as you can see by the photo below. Using the Auto Sensitivity setting and Discriminate, I needed to be nearly touching the gold before the excal responded. It was only slightly better in All Metal and responded ever so slightly at about two inches. I then booted up my V3i and it responded at 4 inches in multi-frequency mode, and about 6 or 7 inches in all metal. If I changed to the higher 22.5KHz, the response was even stronger and I got a slight signal in All Metal at close to 9 inches.

I understand that the BBS and FBS units do not respond their best in air testing, but I still think that I should have gotten much better response from this size piece of gold.

Am I missing something?

 

[goodmore]

Everyone rushes out and buries things when they get a new detector. This does give you some indication of the detector's capabilities. But it is not the end all. First off I will tell you that I have found 22 short brass 10 inches deep in the wet sand with water washing over the coil with my Excalibur. Same thing with the GT. This is our forum so I will state for the record that the Excalibur and Sovereign series are two of the very best VLF detectors in wet sand. They have a variety of tones to help you identify targets. High tones are your coins and silver. You can dig high tone or not. Some people don't bother. A zinc penny isn't worth it to them. Can you tell the difference between coins with the tones? I can't do it. So it is either dig high tones or leave the target for the next guy. Silver crosses and silver coins are worth looking for in my opinion. I can tell a bottle cap usually by the sound. I dig all low tones looking for gold. Mid tones I dig for the same reason. With the GT and meter I can pick and choose. A dime is 180. So a Zinc penny at 177 isn't going to sound any different. Nickles are mid tone and easier to identify. But I can't tell a nickle from a pull tab by the tone. The Excalibur has a weakness when it comes to tiny gold like chains. We know it and accept it. A PI does better with the tiny gold that is for sure.
But a freshly buried target will not give the same hit as one that has been in the sand for a while.
Fire that Excalibur up in waist deep water and let it impress you with real targets. It will hit as deep as you can dig in the water. And it will identify iron better than anything else you have ever used at the beach. If it repeats dig it. That is what you spent your money on.

 

[GunnarMN]

how much discrimination are you running on the x cal

 

[Neil in West Jersey]

how much discrimination are you running on the x cal

I am not sure if you were asking me or him, but I had it set wide open (1). And I bought the Excalibur for the salt beaches, where I am sure it will exceed all of my expectations.

Thanks for the replies!

 

[GunnarMN]

because white gold has some nickle in it that can almost go silent nickle is a very bad conductor and can make a white gold ring disapear but i must say the V-3 is a very good machine if it hit at the depths you said whites is coming around mon

 

[tomcatpl]

NEVER use auto sens 11-12 oclock take a look at this small thing 5" under the sand and tell me that xcal is not sensetivehttp://www.findmall.com/read.php?26,1451148 forget ur garden and the air test just take it to the beach

 

[Buried Crap NJ]

Neil Give this free site a look see.http://www.myspace.com/betfe
You will be able to tell dimes from pennies without any trouble. Do what it says even if you feel it foolish. My wife heard me penny penny penny, what the hell are you doing! It works really.
As far as tones go when hunting try not to change your volume on the machine, this is target volume not anything else. If you change this you targets will sound different each hunt. You'll be very surprised how high gold can be, if you seek only lower growling tones you will do good not to dig coins and pull tabs (aluminum) I find only band growl which I am happy to dig! The last ring I dug Friday was a good size 3.7 dwt 14k topaz ring that sound like a coin. I was using a GT (beach) w/meter and I knew the numbers matched more closer to ring. just stay away from anything that draws out or is scratchy. too many seasoned hunters have dug pennies signals that turned out to be a ring for me not to dig them. My best ring ever life time (two weeks ago) was a solid 177 any direction but oh so smooth sounding. I didn't notice that at the time I was expecting a penny 9.3 dwt 6 diamonds I'll dig pennies all day! There is a learning curve when being so in tune with another detector. Give it some time you'll be happy. If your going to use the detector in your yard turn the sensitivity way down like 3/2 ( electrical noise) I hunt NJ beaches at 4 and dig deep targets!
Also when you able too, learn to hunt in all metal some times you can't do to iron (NJ Beaches) but I find I can dig more deeper targets when the targets are not plentiful. you can with time learn to here gold in AM. I have not yet.

 

[Rick(ND)]

This is something I have said over and over, the Sovereigns and Excalibur's do not air test good depth. This same charm you tried to get in air test of laying on the ground will be much different when actually in the ground, both depth wise and even tone wise. The tones on a clad coin, silver or copper will sound the same, the new zinc penny will be very close to the same tone while most pull tabs and nickle will have a different tone to them. Many will tell you they can tell the difference in the tones, but I will tell you this come with experience with the detector and really getting to know it well and it is not 100% either, but there is some indications on the size and how the target act to tell the difference in the copper pennies, clad or silver dimes quarters and half's.
I think the main thing right now is to get out and use the detector in actual hunting conditions and learn all you can and you will see what some of us talk about.

Good luck

 

[Neil]

Everyone rushes out and buries things when they get a new detector. This does give you some indication of the detector's capabilities. But it is not the end all. First off I will tell you that I have found 22 short brass 10 inches deep in the wet sand with water washing over the coil with my Excalibur. Same thing with the GT. This is our forum so I will state for the record that the Excalibur and Sovereign series are two of the very best VLF detectors in wet sand. They have a variety of tones to help you identify targets. High tones are your coins and silver. You can dig high tone or not. Some people don't bother. A zinc penny isn't worth it to them. Can you tell the difference between coins with the tones? I can't do it. So it is either dig high tones or leave the target for the next guy. Silver crosses and silver coins are worth looking for in my opinion. I can tell a bottle cap usually by the sound. I dig all low tones looking for gold. Mid tones I dig for the same reason. With the GT and meter I can pick and choose. A dime is 180. So a Zinc penny at 177 isn't going to sound any different. Nickles are mid tone and easier to identify. But I can't tell a nickle from a pull tab by the tone. The Excalibur has a weakness when it comes to tiny gold like chains. We know it and accept it. A PI does better with the tiny gold that is for sure.
But a freshly buried target will not give the same hit as one that has been in the sand for a while.
Fire that Excalibur up in waist deep water and let it impress you with real targets. It will hit as deep as you can dig in the water. And it will identify iron better than anything else you have ever used at the beach. If it repeats dig it. That is what you spent your money on.

Which PI and coil combo have you seen that will hit smaller gold than a Sov or Excal? Ive had the HH PI with the 10" coil and presently have the Whites Dual Field and neither is better on smaller gold. I would like to find a PI that can beat the minelabs.

 

[EladSwerdna]

I have a feeling the Excal will give far better results in wet beach sand. This is what I have read over and over...

Head to the beach dude!! Hopefully I will see you there this season.

 

[Critterhunter]

The Sovereign/Excal/Explorer/Etrac do not hit well on tiny gold like little tiny charms or chains, but I gurantee you your GT or Excal will hit any size ring (even thin bands) harder and deeper than any other VLF machine on the market. If you want tiny charms or thin chains then a Tesoro or Fisher is a good choice, but they aint going to find rings (the most common jewelry lost) as deep or find them as easy in rough ground as a Sovereign or Excal will. When I go to the beach I'm not hoping to find some odd little gold item such as a charm, I'm looking for rings and nothing will get them as deep as my GT will.

For coins, you'll notice that silver has a slightly sweeter/softer/sharper tone to it then clads. Copper pennies will bounce from like 178 to 180 here and there. Zincs are 176 or 173. I tweak my meter to go 181 on a silver dime and then those, clad quarters, and anything higher in conductivity will read 181 here and there where as a clad dime and below will read 180.

On the beach I don't care about splitting hairs on targets. So long as it sounds off in discrimination mode I dig it, regardless of how crappy the signal sounds (could be a chain or a ring on end or something). He's right that gold rings can and will read as high as 180 if they are big enough or have enough copper or silver in them or whatever. I wouldn't pass up on any penny signals at the beach. Just too easy to scoop them up real quick, and besides who's to say there isn't a ring under it deeper in the ground. And that's one less target bothering you the next time you show up there to hunt.

I've played with PP mode or All Metal Fixed (once ground balance is set via track...fixed will give slightly more depth as track will track out real deep stuff if you sweep over it enough times) at the beach and I did find one beach where PP mode seemed to hit harder on targets (note I said harder, not deeper) as the sand has a bunch of microscopic iron and minerals in it which would make the target break up or get ghostly in Discriminate. However, I got real sick real quick of digging bottle caps, bobby pins, nails, and various other bits of iron humanity. In an hour I had hardly moved out of one small area, where as in discriminate I could have ignored all that junk and covered 10 times more of the beach by then. In other words, if you're at a beach where the hits are few and far between in discriminate then you may want to switch to All Metal Fixed or PP mode and start digging anything that sounds off.

On the other hand, I'd first stick a dime in the ground at fringe depth for that site to where it is just deep enough to where discrimination really can't pick it up anymore. Then switch to All Metal Fixed (after setting it in track) or PP mode and see if either will hit the dime better than discriminate. I really don't think either is deeper than discriminate, but if the conditions are right (tiny iron or certain mineral content) then they will hit it harder than discriminate. I've only found this to be true at one beach thus far, but the non-ferrous targets were so numerous anyway why bother with All Metal when there are plenty of targets and just too much iron in the ground.

 

[bootyhoundpa]

in my experience the small gold charms and pendent earings sound terrible--- a some what broken signal some times..... i attribute this to the fact that most of this micro gold is not round... and as the old saying goes "round has a sound" .... round objects will almost always try to give you a smooth sound where as small charms will sound like garbage... but if you are hunting in a spot where you know there is gold it is worth while to dig those iffy signals' especially those signals which have a very tiny footprint...that is to say that you can tell the target is much smaller than a coin..... i too have found my whites 5900 more responsive to micro gold but my 5900 would not have found the class ring 14 inches deep in the wet sand like my gt did.... every machine has its place ... you are gonna places where one machine out performs the other.... thats why its good to have several differrent detectors... in the wet sand you will really like the excal im sure.....