Will raising the disc on a GT help in small iron (cut square nails) ??

[jbow]

I have never tried hunting with any disc with my SovereignGT. Everyone always says to set to set the disc=0 and notch=0 and I guess I took it and never looked back. Cut square nails, 1" or so, have always given me a hard time with the GT. They sound just good enough to make me think that they might be a slightly masked goodie. A full length nail is no problem because it will double beep from one direction, a 1" square nail wont double beep.

Will a little disc along with iron mask help? I am going to try it for sure but do you ever use a little disc with your Sovereign or Excal??

Thanks!

Julien

 

[Critterhunter]

If you want to hear less of these nails then turn Iron Mask OFF. That should work but I haven't tried it. I'll never take it out of Iron Mask ON because I want the machine to constantly be trying to let masked targets sound through the iron. I'd rather hear it and make my own judgement to dig or not. I would think cranking up the discrimination would quiet them down a bit too because as the nail starts to sound through it might at first appear lower on the scale than coils. If the discrimination is high enough you probably won't hear it until you hit the right spot to where it gives a false coin hit.

But, rather than do any of the above the best way to tell nails from coins would be to pinpoint the target. If it seems to move off to the side a little than it was in discriminate it probably is a nail or other piece of iron. Beyond all that the VDI number will tend to be jumpy from different directions and you can hear that the signal isn't clean. That's my main way of avoiding iron rather than go into pinpoint to check it.

It sounds like you just need to raise your standards a bit for what an iffy signal sounds like that is worth digging. If the nails are driving you crazy at a spot just memorize how they sound and act and only dig iffy signals that sound/act different. I use this method in the woods to avoid shot gun shells. Some of them can give a halfway decent coin signal swept certain ways. When I hit a spot where they are thick I just stop digging any "coin" targets with those traits. If they aren't thick I'll dig them because like you I don't want to risk passing a masked coin up.

In reality though most masked coins probably are still going to act different than those fluke shotgun shells. Same deal with your nails. If you read the thread of my review of the S-5 coil you'll get a good idea of how masked coins will act compared to junk. Wiggle the coil fast while you slowly crawl it back and fourth over the target. If it's a coin you'll get a real solid tone and perfect ID in one spot. It's hard to explain but it differs from a phantom coin spike from iron. Practice that over a coin masked with iron and I think you'll see how much different they are.