Wookiee's treasure

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Thanks Paulmarr.

Kind of wish I had read up some more about the 705. I wanted it mainly for beach hunting and I guess I should have researched more instead of taking the word of the shop who sold it to me.

I guess I will use it for a while and then sell it and grab an Excalibur or Excalibur II.

Thanks for your help. Greatly appreciated. :)
 
Wookiee said:
Thanks Paulmarr.

Kind of wish I had read up some more about the 705. I wanted it mainly for beach hunting and I guess I should have researched more instead of taking the word of the shop who sold it to me.

I guess I will use it for a while and then sell it and grab an Excalibur or Excalibur II.

Thanks for your help. Greatly appreciated. :)

Never believe the guy selling you stuff. ;)
 
Too true Ramjet... too true

Went for a quick hunt this arvo with a mate and a Sovereign XS2A Pro.
Local beach we hadn't been to before.

Found 12x 5c pieces, 1x $1 and a 20c coin in one spill.
The others were scattered around the beach.

Out for a couple of hours and got this lot
1452512767_12506612_10208362566523958_1617468371_n.jpg
 
Pinpointer and a plug cutting tool are next on the shopping list. Quite a few signals in the grass near the beach, but poking around with a screwdriver only found one 20c piece.
 
Going great guns Wookiee x... some of those coins have been there for a while too. :D
 
I don't think this particular beach has been hunted before.
We had a hunt at a couple of parks on the weekend and late last week, but they were clean..... very clean. So we think they have been hammered lately.

But the grassed area near the beach today had signals all over it. I dont have a pinpointer and retrieval would have left damage to the area so I will hit it again when I get a pinpointer and some sort of digging tool. Cheap trowels from Bunnings bend and break (at least the one I got did).
 
My 705 dual pack arrived today!!
Stoked.

I also ordered a cover for it which arrived with the detector.
Came with a free Minelab hat and a pack of AA's.

I did as suggested in the manual and put some various bits of metal on the lawn and tested it to see how different metals acted and what ID's they threw etc (And I wanted to play with it hahaha)

Everything good except for one that surprised me. I have a 5ozt bar of 99.9% silver and it shows a solid as hell 48 ID which is discriminated out on all of the factory disc settings. So I altered one of the factory discrimination patterns so nothing is discriminated as per the advice given in "Understanding your X-Terra" ebook on the Minelab site (as opposed to running in All Metal) and will run that. I can't remember why the author said to do it that way, but it made sense when I read it haha.

I dont expect to find a lot of 99.9% silver, but while I learn I want to "see" everything under the coil until I know what is safe to disc out.

Also picked up a Minelab Go Find 25 Pinpointer on special at a local shop. I was going to order one from one of the guys on here (and still will in a few weeks as I need a waterproof one), but need it for the weekend as I have permission to hunt a local football oval and don't want to be digging holes to China.
 
Glad you are happy with your purchase, it should serve you well. 48 is probably discriminated out to avoid iron falsing high in the ID range. Some have mentioned this in the past with the 705 and it tends to occur over rusty iron junk, nails and other bits & pieces of iron in the soil, and they are usually non repeatable signals/high tones. So essentially you can get iron ringing up in the low & high ID numbers, google "iron wrap around effect" for more info on the subject.

I wouldn't be too worried about the 5oz silver bar ringing up as 48, it also has to do with the mass of the item as well as composition. Silver coins/jewellery will generally read lower ID numbers the smaller the coin is, ie. .925 florin reads around 44, .925 threepence in the mid 30's. You probably won't find any coins/jewellery above the 44-45 ID, with the silver 50c probably the biggest silver coin you will find reading up there as one of the highest. :)
 
Awesome info. Thanks Goldpick.
I was wondering if the size of the 5oz bar would affect it's target ID. I will try it with some 1oz bullion coins and a 25g bar I have as well.

I also have a titanium and 375 gold ring I will try it with to see what ID I get.

I had read about the wrap around effect and why it's advisable to disc out 48 and the negative ID numbers to avoid digging iron etc.

Is there anything that falls into the negative numbers that could potentially be a valuable metal?
I know there would be some iron relics in that range which could be valuable I guess, but I am more interested in finding coins and jewellery than relics at this stage and where I hunt.
 
Probably nothing to worth worrying about in the iron range if mainly after coins/jewellery, some very small gold items may hit towards the iron range, though a majority of rings will read higher ID's.

It's purely personal preference on listening to iron or discriminating it out, it will drive some people nuts with constant low tones going off all the time, whilst others are prepared to put up with it, and try to pick out the high tones from amongst the mix. Probably easier to just knock the iron out to start with. On the upside, iron can indicate areas of previous habitation or activity, and hence may prove to be good older locations to search for coins in.

Very deep targets may also be mistakely indentified as iron due to being out of effective range of both discrimination and detector capability. If in doubt on some of those dodgy sounding targets, better off to dig them at first to see what they are, and make a mental note for next time round if continually coming up as junk finds.

Also wind the sensitivity back if just after spendables, no point in listening to every target in the soil if you are just after shallow modern coinage, and use the DD coil in the junkier areas, much easier to separate out targets with vs the concentric.

If I were to purchase a 705, I'd be looking at owning the 10" DD coil for general detecting duties, as the supplied coils are a bit of a compromise for those choosing to do a bit of gold & coin detecting. :)
 
Awesome. Thanks for the info Goldpick.

When you say 10" you mean the 10.5" circular shaped coils shown here? (Not the oval 10x5) :

1452841963_x-terra-coils-comparison-table_1.jpg


If just hunting for coins and jewellery would you go the 7.5 or 18.75khz coil?

I am going to grab one of the Coiltek 15" round coils for beach hunting I think. Beaches where I am are devoid of any metal (including ringpulls etc) for what seems like miles at a time and I want to cover as much ground as I can early in the morning as its been hitting 45c here quite regularly recently.
 
Sorry, yes the 10.5" round DD. Maybe even a better option would be to consider a NEL coil with changeable frequencies, they are all waterproof as well vs being water resistant.

The lower frequencies should go deeper and hit harder on the high conductors coins (copper, silver). Saves you from having to buy separate Minelab coils to get different frequencies.

I believe member Clegy is an agent for NEL in Oz, though specific items may need to be ordered in.
http://detectorist.com.au/collections/all

Here's the changeable frequency NEL Hunter for the 705.

http://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/production/nel-hunter?id=1411

http://nel-coils.com/index.php/en/
 
I ran the 705 in all metal. The nulling you get with discrimination, can degrade good signals quite a bit.
 
Was looking around the local Minelab distributor here in town and decided to buy the Coiltek 15" 18.75kHz WOT II coil.
Should be able to cover more ground at the beach and hopefully reach a little deeper with the larger coil.

1453213214_coiltek_15_18.75_coil.jpg
 
You will cover more ground that's for sure, but you will soon find out how heavy the detector will be after 30 minutes with it on
 
Shouldn't be an issue. Have been using a mates Sovereign XS2A Pro and thats heavier by miles than the X-Terra with the 15" coil.
I sling concrete around all day with a shovel and screed. Swinging the detector isn't that difficult. ;)
 
Went out this morning for a couple of hours.
Found this lot.

The small sinkers were close to the surface, but the big one was about 2 feet down. Took some digging to find it lol

The 50c is a Centenary of Federation and the $1 is an Outback coin.

Loving the new 15" Coiltek coil. Covers a heap more ground.
1453508193_20160123_080223web.jpg
 

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