Find's Treasure Forums

Welcome to Find's Treasure Forums, Guests!

You are viewing this forums as a guest which limits you to read only status.

Only registered members may post stories, questions, classifieds, reply to other posts, contact other members using built in messaging and use many other features found on these forums.

Why not register and join us today? It's free! (We don't share your email addresses with anyone.) We keep email addresses of our users to protect them and others from bad people posting things they shouldn't.

Click here to register!



Need Support Help?

Cannot log in?, click here to have new password emailed to you

Changed email? Forgot to update your account with new email address? Need assistance with something else?, click here to go to Find's Support Form and fill out the form.

The 70 at Fort Powhatan

Well my finds were meager to some of the folks that were lucky enough to have the coil in the right spot at the right time but I can tell you without a doubt that the 70 made a good showing in some nasty ground. I tried every tone option and since I'm a glutton for punishmnet and like to hear it all I went for 99 tones.
I even took it down on the beach during low tide for some bottom feeding and hunted right in the middle of a pack of folks that were swinging Whites, Fisher, Troy X5, Tesoro's, Garrett's, and you name it, they were swinging it.
You all might find this to be interesting, I put the 70 in beach mode and worked right along the waters edge, this spot is directly below the Fort and is covered with hot rocks, red clay bricks, iron, black sand pockets, ugly stanky clay and just about anything you can imagine that will hinder a detectors ability to produce results.
Here's the good part, I tried both the 7.5 and the 18.75 coils and both produced bullets and coins right in between the other folks and in many cases, I found good targets walking behind others and literally in their left behind footsteps.
It got so obvious that at one time while digging targets I had some of these folks stop hunting and watch me pull targets that their detectors was not seeing as good hits :)
Some were inquisitive enough to ask me to let them hear the next target through my headphones BEFORE I dug it up, and yes some tried their detectors and said all they heard was trash or nothing at all.
The 70 really performed well in this nasty area and left a few folks scratching their heads and me feeling like a proud new papa :)

I was really impressed with the 70 inland as well, it hit on percussion caps 6-7" deep and bullets in the 10" range.
Small pieces of brass and copper were easy targets even in the overgrowth areas which were just about everywhere under the tree's considering this site dates back to pre Revolutionary War.

Now for the BAD part, the 50 and 70 both seem to share something in common with it's big brother the Explorer. It seems that almost every time I removed the top layer of overgrowth to see the ground, which was usually around 3" thick, naturally I would hear the target much better ... now if I just went ahead and dug the target at say 6" for example and the target was 8" down I would completely LOSE the target signal. And ... I can't tell you how many times I dug the target out of the hole and couldn't find it in the pile of dirt by using the pinpoint button. It was like the target completely disappeared. I would even take a handful of dirt from the pile and wave it over the coil until the pile was depleted and never hear the target but could find it with a hand-held pin pointer.
Sure hope Ralph makes an in line probe fro the X-Terra soon, otherwise we have a problem.
I listened to some very faint targets that the Tejon users were hearing and the Tejon does well at this site. They were only slight whispers and tics on the Tejon and I was pleased that the 70 could hear them equally well too.
Now, what does the 70 need to make this an almost perfect detector ?
Well the coils are already coming so that's not an issue but if and when a in line probe becomes available, a man would be in for a FIGHT to get the 70 out of my hands. :minelab: :thumbup:
 
Next time try toggling over to the prospecting mode when you lose a target. That's a clean mode that works great for audio pinpointing and it goes as deep as the Coin&Treasure mode. It doesn't seem to suffer from drift like the pinpoint mode does, either.

I think you'll find that to be the missing piece you are after. ;)

HH
 
But I'm pretty sure most of the time it was more to do with the site and conditions than anything else. The prospecting mode was still a bit to wide and wavery for my pleasure and a Sunray probe would be a welcomed addition in my book, especially with the 99 tones.
I dug a well spent 1/2 bullet fragment in prospecting mode that was an easy 10" with plenty of signal strenght too by the way :)
H.H.
Mike
 
I didn't bother to dip my finger down in the water for a taste test but I imagine the area was mostly fresh water to brackish mixed.
It's the James river that runs up past Lynchburg, Va on down into the Chesapeake Bay area with Fort Powhatan not far from the yellow line in the photo.
Mike
 
n/t
 
How about people with X-Terra 50 with no prosoecting mode. What is the solution to not being able to easily locate targets once dug from the ground?? Thanks for any answers.

Michael.
 
That's what I use, some folks say they don't need one and I guess it's OK to remain "old school" if they want to but it would be just MY LUCK to hit that "Find of a Lifetime" and ric it with a shovel or Lesche tool so I always use one.
Of course a inline probe would be my first preference but until then I'll keep using my handheld ... but it's up to the individual.
I just hate having to throw dirt over my coil to find a target, it's messy at best and a pain in the A$$ too.
Mike
 
It was nice of ya'll to stop and eat breakfast with me as you guys were headed that way. I am definatly likin' my 70!

I know all about that beach area of Powhatan. I didn't hunt the main beach they found stuff on last year...I didn't even know where it was. But I hunted another beach down from it when I was there last year. I had a Vaquero then and it is a pretty decent machine but I got tired of that beach in a hurry. You could walk one step and the ground balance be off from where you set it. I headed back into the woods from there.

Looks like the 70 worked well for you there. Inland the ground is very very good dirt. I'd give anything to have dirt like that down here. Love that VA dirt. Looks like Prospecting mode is going to by my main relic mode here. I've noticed that in the coin mode, even in all metal, the detector will read good stuff as iron. BUT it all depends on how the coil hits it. If you play with the sweep speed you can get it to come into the positive range for a swing or two but in Prospecting mode....I'm just setting it with enough iron disc to knock out a square nail and when set like that, it is POUNCING on the same objects that it will reject in the coin mode. I'm sure the coin mode is going to be really really good for the coin/jewelry hunters but I'm banking on the prospecting mode to be the relic hunters friend. Or atleast here anyway.
 
You're absolutely right Daniel !
The prospecting mode will BANG on bullets very hard and the difference is more than noticeable to say the least.
I was asked if I could hear a very deep target a fellow had with his Nautilus and the only way I could hear it was in prospecting mode.
Of course he had already dug down about 1' already and the target was still down another 2-3" before the 69 cal. was uncovered but the 70 hit it without doubt. He was using a 15" coil on his Naughty too and was impressed that the 70 could hit that target, so was I :)
Live and learn, this happened on the last hour before we left the site heading home .... so now we know huh.

Mike
 
Top