Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Metal Detecting

Anyone here into metal detecting? I need another hobby like a hole in the head but this is really intriguing to me. I have lots of places of opportunity I think and it feels like it could be a ton of fun. Does anyone here engage in it?

No I do not, but I have a buddy who is hooked on it. He goes all over to old towns gone by the wayside years ago. He goes to old railroad towns and finds all kinds of stuff. I have enough hobbys now without starting more. I have always wanted to try and get gold in Alaska. He is upgrading his detector on a regular basis. He was using a Whites the last time I was around him, and he could discriminate out a lot of junk. He has been doing this for at least 30 years. He is looking for old stuff, not going around ball diamonds and other recent venues. Good Luck with you venture.

I would think it would be fun if you have some cool areas to search.

All depends what you want to accomplish. You're not going to get rich. But you can find whatever your area offers. Out here it's mining equipment. Buddy and I found a wagon buried in the brush last year. Click the links for short videos.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/S0qtlG9.mp4[/img]



[img]https://i.imgur.com/8qazWOp.mp4[/img]



[img]https://i.imgur.com/bVhN6Fg.mp4[/img]

Many areas have already been searched, with old equipment. The detector industry keeps improving the technology to the point that identifying the item in the ground with some degree of certainty is now the norm!

Hunted out is a term often used, but the newest upper end machines keep right on finding stuff that the older technology missed.

I have been into detectors and ghost towns for over forty years. It is still fun, but now a little harder to stand back up after digging a target!

Short answer, go for it! Just don't buy bottom of the line detectors! MineLab, White's, or Garrett still make state of the art machines!

A friend of mine does it in west central Ks. He mostly goes at the sites of known late 1800s Calvary camp sites and creek crossings. He finds a few brass buttons from military uniforms, and quite a few fired cartridges, most of them are bent up and corroded. And he finds some horse shoes and misc metal pieces but nothing real valuable.

What type of metal detector works best for searching for meteorites?

I bought one for my youngest boy a couple of years ago for Christmas.
He enjoys it but we haven’t found anything of worth.
A lot of junk.
We did find the brass from a few old shotgun shells. One was a the base for a 10 gauge that dated between 1904 and 1918 if I remember correctly.
We found a lot of old files too. I guess they would get wore down and they would just chunk em’ over the hill.
I have an uncle who is big into it and he’s pretty good at it. He knows where to look too.

Most of them will easily find iron, which meteorites mostly are. A good magnet on the end of a ski pole will help as well. You want a Neodymium/rare earth magnet.

I've done a little over the years. Whatever you do don't go cheap to start out or you will be digging a lot of worthless targets which is a huge waste of time. Found this stuff in about 2 hours around an old farm house that is getting ready to be torn down. The oldest penny dates back to 1909 if I remember.

It is a fun and rewarding hobby. It is much more rewarding if you are satisfied with finding relics that you can tie to a particular era or place. Depending on where you hunt, you will find much more trash and cast off than anything of monetary value. Once you begin to learn what your detector is telling you, it becomes easier to discriminate targets and focus on the better sounding tones. But there is no magic detector that tells you there is gold there, or silver here. You have to listen and dig. You will probably dig 5000 bullets or pull tabs to every piece of gold. But if you don’t dig the lead, you wont find the gold. If you don’t dig the aluminum, you don’t find the silver dollar.

If you are a miserable human being who finds it difficult to enjoy ANYTHING, you won’t enjoy this hobby either.

I have a Whites detector haven't used it in years. I used to play with it in El Dorado State Park in Kansas when I was hosting campgrounds found lots of coins searching around the campsites.

I’ve been at it since 1975… currently I have two machines.
A Minelab Goldmonster and Equinox 800… both have only been used for nugget hunting so far… yes, it’s a good hobby and CAN be very rewarding.

Cool thanks for the replies. Our vacation home is about a mile as the crow flies from where Custer camped in '74...seems like it might be worth trying to me. Been a bit of gold found in the general area as well over the years. Anyone got a suggestion for a machine?

it was something I wanted to get into a few months back with my wife

watched a bunch of videos on it.

The guys that were really successful from what I saw did alot of research before hand - for example identifying locations of old country stores that are long gone.

My FIL was into it, and I inherited his detector. Once I started educating myself on what the "professionals" were using, I realized I was at the low end, and in my estimation, would need to spend about $1200 to get what I needed to do it right.

so admittedly I lost interest in it.

One guy I watch in particular has a small powered kayak and he goes up and down creeks in North Carolina mostly, he constantly finds civil war relics, mainly bullets, the occasional button. He gets excited after a storm because the washout opens up areas that were picked over before.He would focus on old ferry crossings and low spots where wagons would cross. He got attacked by a rabid beaver in one episode.

I think there is a definite skill to it.

I’ve had several machines since I was 15 yrs old.

It mostly sucks ass, viney roots, fuss and fight 15 minutes for fuggin lead roofing washer

Take it to the beach—- walk around looking like a pedophile and only find a hundred michelob ultra fàg beer bottle caps, or balls of tin foil the Brady Bunch kids hauled their pemento cheese sandwiches in.

Playgrounds, everyone is a dick about you digging because “Ralph Jones” a prior metal detector dipshît left divits and potholes

Federal lands are off limits, but hey “Out Wedt” you foucks do what you want with one ranger covering a whole goddamm state.

For the most part…..youre digging garbage and I don’t care how fancy your discriminator mode goes. The other caveat….some other old do-nothing retired fart head has already covered the ground you want to search

And think about this, if someone lost a gold coin or silver…they’d crawl around in the yard for 3 days looking for it.

I have trash coils, relic coils.

Oh yeah

Chiggers, seed ticks,

So worth it

My dad does every old farmhouse and place his 90 year old dad remembers a farmhouse back in the wayback. He finds a bunch of odds and ends stuff that’s just kinda neat, old car badges, makeup compacs from the 20s-40s, tin condom boxes from the 20s, pocket watches and pocketknives. He’s even found quite a few old silver coins including one half dollar. Local places people still visit like the fairgrounds are good for a few bucks worth of change on any given day.

Do know a guy who found a 2 gallon pickle jar full of 1930s silver dollars and half dollars last year at an old homesite in TN so there’s still treasure to be found.

Why do I feel like Slum commenting on my thread means I win a prize? LOL love it.

I have a mine lab Equinox 600 that I bought this spring and it's been a great machine so far. Saves a lot of time digging trash, another thing to have is a pin pointer also.