All Metal All The Time
This tip is definitely not for everyone. Why if there is such great discriminating detectors and custom discrimination patterns would we ever want to go to “all metal” or no discrimination?? Simple, more finds.
For years I’ve been detecting with various machines from Garrett to White’s and now finally to Minelab Explorer SE. All of my previous detectors had good discrimination and good preset programs. I’ve found a lot of quality finds with all of my machines.
When I purchased the Minelab, my expectations were super high. I thought I’d be able to hunt all of my old haunts and pull out silver coins out till I got bored of digging. The first few days were extremely disappointing. I was basically learning the machine, but good targets weren’t presenting themselves like I’d hoped.
Hitting a few Minelab forums and asking the key questions, I was surprised by the amount of replies stating to go “all metal”. I was very concerned. I didn’t want to go detecting and hear a barrage of beeps and squeak. I liked hearing quality tones mixed with silence. I thought that was the point of modern day metal detectors.
Deciding to give it a shot, and most importantly to commit to the change first before deciding to go back, I started my new training. Switching to straight “all metal” or iron mask 32 is NOT the way to start. First, you’ll want to change your sound setting to ferrous and NOT conductive (Please review other How-to ‘Ferrous vs. Conductive’). Next you’ll want to lower the iron mask to about 20. This will give your ears a chance to hear and identify those ferrous tones.
With every new outing, try to notch back another level of iron mask (to 21 for example), until you get to the point of 32 or “all metal”. By slowing easing into it, your ears and brain will get accustomed to the tones.
What you are doing is basically training your brain to be the discrimination. You eventually will pay no attention to the low thuds, but you’ll immediately “perk up” when you hear higher tones.
Now, what’s the point? The point of going “all metal” is to allow your detector to identify targets instead of worrying about blocking out targets. By going “all metal” you’ll increase your depth and avoid masking or nulling.
Masking or nulling is when your detector goes over a target and the discrimination takes over breaking the threshold with silence. The danger is that some targets could be underneath the mask and you would have missed it within the silence.
Also, while in “all metal” or in general with the Minelab Explorer SE, you should be moving your coil extremely slow. By going slower you’re allowing more targets to be identified. My rate of sweep is approximately three seconds to go left to right. This is especially useful in trashy areas.
After switching to “all metal”, I immediately noticed finds increasing, massively. The old spots were definitely showing targets that I’ve missed many times before with other detectors. I firmly believe by opening up the detector allowed me to see many more targets. Deep nickels, are a great example of missed targets.
I would never go back to disc, and I’m utterly amazed I waited this long to open it up. If you want to take your finds to the next level, trying getting rid of the disc!
On December 11, 2009 Phillip staton wrote:
Great information, Should help me a lot