Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Metal detecters - fun hobby or waste of time?

Talking of "sweet spots" when my nephew was about 8 years old, I bought him a kids detector one Christmas.

Knowing his attention span was short and the detector was rather limited, I went out and buried a hand full of coins scattered around the corner of a near by field..

The look on his face when he made his first "finds" was worth it!

Eventually it got to be a bit of a routine; he would phone and ask if I would take him out with the detector and I would go out just before he turned up and bury a handful of coins..

Over the next few months, his "finds" would have probably cost me more that the original present! lol

Forgot to mention.

I lived in Mina, Nevada some years ago, and every year a group of guys would stay in town for a week or so while hunting the tails piles of the local abandoned mines.

I never saw a huge nugget, but they always came back with gold, usually enough to pay for their trip and then some.

They seemed to always have a good time.

I don't know the current status but some years ago a lot of parks, etc were outlawing them because the treasure hunters were using trowels and shovels and making a mess of the place.

+1 on this!

I too have been playing with detectors for at least 45 years. The research end of the hobby can account for many winter evenings and by spring, boy of boy are you fired up.

The best advice I ever got was to find a local dealer that is willing to give you some one-on-one training with what ever machine you select. The few dollars saved by mail-order dealers is false economy. The local dealer wants to help you succeed and will go out of his way to make you happy. He may also be able to get you in touch with other locals - a partner is always a real plus for anybody in this hobby.

Happy Hunting - Craig

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/03/25/07/16/victorian-grandma-finds-gold-nugget

even better....

http://www.nuggetshooter.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=27825

If one insists on getting into it.

Get a secondary smaller (3"-4") coil if you get into places with mixed trash so you can pinpoint during discrimination.

I used the 10" coil for open fields and forest areas for quick cruising.

I'd be out "hunting" right now, but my brothers condition keeps me home most of the time. I'm moving at the end of the month to a place where he'll have a part time "sitter"...& yes, I plan on supplementing my retirement...it's fun...it CAN be rewarding & believe me...it CAN be good exercise, especially if you're climbing hills & using a good "Pulse Induction" machine...it sure beats the hell out of sitting on the couch.

Hijacking this thread on purpose !

How are you and your Brother doing ? Have been wondering how it is going for you both

I've thought about getting into nugget hunting as we have quite a few old mines and not all of them have active claims so there is good potential to find some picture gold or maybe a nugget or two in a tailings pile.

But the key is to realize it's similar to fishing in the ocean. Yes, there are fish in the ocean, but there is a lot more ocean than fish so you need to concentrate on fishing areas where the fish will be concentrated. Same thing with detecting, you need to do your research on narrowing down areas that are likely to contain buried valuables.

Yes, that's been a problem with some. With very little effort one can dig and leave hardly a trace, if any.

I had a low end model years and we had a lot of fun with it over the years. Maybe in our retirement we could take up the hobby again.

As a kid in the 60's I had a crazy neighbor with a kit built White's detector IIRC. He was my buddy's father and I thought he was pretty cool at the time. He like guns, fireworks, metal detecting, digging for old bottles in farm dumps and he shot off a line cannon every 4th of July on the corner in our neighborhood. He also had a secret stash of stag films that we "discovered", but that is another story.

Anyways, I thought detecting was cool but it was sort of like hunting on posted property, you never knew if you were going to get run off where you were digging. This guy was president of the local PBA so he acted pretty much like he owned the places we went.

Long and short of it he found a colonial era flintlock pistol near the Princeton Battlefield that had British markings that were pretty clear after he soaked it in a mild acid solution. All the wood was gone but everything else came out of the hole. He also found a New Jersy penny once at Washington's Crossing just across the river in PA. I can even remember him going to the site of the Battle of Trenton and doing some detecting. All of these things would probably get you a nice fine these days but hey, it was the 6o's.

I have a bounty Hunter myself, but I really never have the time to use it. I've found the usal crap along with some better stuff. My best find is a civil war uniform button in my next door neighbors yard. His house was built in 1739.

I'm lucky enough to live in a good area for relic hunting. I used to relic hunt a lot more back in the 90's. There is a skill to it that will get you more finds or will get you nothing if you don't have that skill.

I mostly hunted for and found Civil War relics, lots of U.S. and some Confederate. I found thousand of bullets, round ball, percussion caps etc. and quite a few military buttons, buckles, box plates and insignia.

It's a lot of work, you will be worn out at the end of the day and it's not a good summertime hobby. I used to have several shoe boxes of relics that my wife called "junk" that I kept in our bedroom closet. That junk turned out to be a few thousand dollars worth when we started selling on ebay back in '98.

I'm kind of interested in this subject also.

So, I was wondering if the value is there, for a beginner, to buy the Garrett Ace-350 instead of the Ace -250.

There is little difference in cost, about $85.00+ for the Ace-350.

I know most everything has a learning curve, and on some hobbies it's better to start out with a tool that's easy to learn on. Others, easy to learn, and you can grow into.

I doubt that I'd be using whichever purchase I make, a great deal of time, but I would like to buy something that allows for discarding pop tops, bottle caps, ect., and has a easy learning curve.

Respects,
Richard

In Anchorage there is a place called Alaska Mining and Diving. They have a Gold mind back in the bush that you have to fly out to. They have a deal for some amount of money (not cheap) they will fly you our and feed you for a week. What ever you find in gold you keep. They keep the place full doing that. Some pretty good strikes happen on occasion. I think most people at least pay for their trip.

I went through the same thing a couple years ago. After my research I originally planed on getting an Ace 350 but after some contemplation decided that was a little too much money for me to sink into an unknown hobby.

I ended up with a Tesoro Compadre for about half the price. It dose not have the discrimination abilities of the Ace but it is a solid machine that is simple for beginners to understand. If I ever decide to get an second upgraded machine I'll probably skip the Ace line and go strait to the upper end Garrets.

I've only done detecting around the ranch here so I've not come across many coins yet. My best find being an 1898 Indian head penny. There are several old homesteads on the place so most of what I find are relics.

I've found an surprising number of different fired cartridge casings, some dating back to the late 1800s. I've found everything from .32 rimfire short to .45 Bulldog.

It's pretty neat getting a glimpse back in time and seeing what folks were doing 100+ years ago.

The Gaines Creek nugget detecting trips are no more.

Not hard to find some 250 vs. 350 comparisons on the net. The thing with detectors is you need have an idea of what you are looking for and what ground you'll be working in. Some detectors will work better for some metals than others, or large deep objects vs. smaller objects, some detectors are better at discriminating what you're looking for from mineralized ground, etc. Do some research as there is lots of good information out there.

When you start trying to tune out bottle caps & the other junk, you lose sensitivity...some machines have "tone" & digital readout "discrimination" but I know a guy that was nugget hunting with a popular "gold" detector & got a screaming signal that was thought to be iron... his buddy dug that same target not 5 minutes later & unearthed a nice 3/4 ounce nugget not 2 inches below the surface...even if you use a machine that will most of the time be pretty spot on as far as identifying what the signal is...one of the first things you need to learn is to dig everything...when you pass up digging up what probably is a rusty old can, you'll feel pretty stupid when your buddy digs that target & finds that rusty old can (or jar) & it's filled with old coins or cash.

Dig everything.

I've got one of the $200 ilk.

I use it to find arrows in the back yard. Works great!

The extra bells and whistles aren't necessary but the power is. I would recommend a machine that can detect small objects that are deep.

I always use my ears to discriminate good metal from trash. If you are digging aluminum pull tabs then a gold coin could be next. When you find a target, move the head across in different directions. If you get a faint signal that is clear, smooth and doesn't hick-up then that could be something good a few inches down. Some things are bigger and not deep, but I always look for things that other relic hunters missed. Move real slow like you are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Most of my good finds were very faint signals from objects that were just deep enough that my machine would have missed if it had a little less power or I would have missed if I had been moving too fast.