Switch from Garrett to White's??? ARGH!!

[fuzymunky]

Before you guys dump 50 gallon trash cans on me, please hear me out. And just one preface, but an important one to please keep in mind: I have never ONCE sold a coin I've found in the practice of MDing. Just want to put that out there so you know I'm not just a "loot wh*re" trying to maximize my coin intake. I get all the silver coinage I need from roll hunting and two family members running separate coin shops.

I keep bouncing back and forth between keeping my Garrett AT Pro, and ditching it for a White's. I had my wife bury 7 different silver coins along with a bunch of metal trash in the back yard and I found every single one of the coins (and of course the trash) with the AT. But when I go hunting with my MD club buddies who all carry White's, they run circles around my finds (Me: "Hey cool, a gold eagle button", Them: "Hey cool, $50,000 worth of coins and jewelry"). A friend of mine purposely followed a path I just went over as a joke saying, "I bet I find a button!". Well, he didn't find a button. He found a seated dime!!!. What the heck? And every single person I hunt with and/or know from our area club uses a White's as well. Why am I finding silver coins at home, buried 6 inches and deeper (and I did not watch where she buried them) yet missing the hot ticket items out in the field?

And this same field mind you, I'm literally finding miniscule !!!! like....A STAPLE!! (not a joke, I found one, single, unused, severely rusted staple at about 4"). Buddy says to me, "If you're finding stuff as small as staples, you should be finding the coins and relics too". This is coming from the same guy who, when they emptied our city lake this spring, found over 300 silver and gold rings in......wait for it.......ONE DAY!!! Oh, and a nickel-plated derringer too.....sigh. He's coming up on 40 years of metal detecting, so needless to say I respect what he says about the staple comment.

And as far as the coil cord issue: I've tried every configuration conceivable. From plain old tight wrapping all the way up, to straight up the pipe with Velcro straps. I find zero change in performance.

But....why no coins? I can go to every single kiddie park in town and I swear, if there was enough of it, I'd be a millionaire off the clad I've found. But....not one silver coin since I've purchased the unit. On the jewelry side, I've found four 14k gold items and countless .925 silver stuff. But....no silver coins. I've been a coin collector since I could use the potty all by myself (which I think was sometime last fall). In 100% honesty, I would trade every single piece of jewelry (well, maybe not the ring I sold for $700) for their weight in silver/rare coins.

I've heard soooooo much trash talking about quite honestly the entire line of Garrett machines (minus the pinpointer...which is priceless...to me at least). But then I watch 50 videos of fellas using an AT Pro and finding heaps of silver change. What gives?

I know the first thing a lot of guys are going to be inclined to say is "operator error" or "Garretts suck" but I know my machine, and I've seen some spectacular finds with all different Garrett machines. I'm a 100% disabled veteran and since I don't work, have nothing else to do with my time but hunt.

I don't mean to mislead anyone by posting this, and I guess I should make a few clear points here: No, I'm not out there trying to use my machine as a weed eater. My coil swinging motto is "slow, smooth, and steady". No, I don't only hunt kiddie parks (as you see in this post, we were hunting an abandoned civil war maneuvering grounds). Yes, I do my research. I put six months of research into this specific location, including matching up old pictures to the existing tree lines, hills, etc, and paid plenty of visits to it before I even took my machine out there.

And to add to my dilema: Were headed to the "family land" for two weeks for Thanksgiving. This land is completely virgin to MDing and I'm being completely honest here when I say (and honestly don't give a squirt if you don't believe me) that my wife's grandfather is a direct blood line relative of the James Boys' grandfather. This is well documented within the family. There are four areas on the family land of specific interest to me: the foundation/filled cellar of a shack that Frank would stay in while visiting, an area that both Frank and Jesse frequented (what I'm told) often while "passing through", the "James Graveyard" (that's the real name, and lots of James headstones from the 1800s, a few early 1900s), and more currently, the house where the "crazy uncle" lived (come on, every family's got that "crazy uncle" no one wants to talk to during family reunions...). He didn't trust banks, and buried every cent he had in his back yard (these "yards" are rather large fields...not your average fenced in city yard)....only to wind up offing himself and not telling anyone where he left his life savings.

SO...as you can see, I am faced with (what I consider to be) a rather time sensitive dilemma, in need of serious, tempered, non-biased, superior knowledge here. Keep the Garrett and bank on the silver coins found in the back yard? Or purchase and learn as much as I can about a White's (and what model in a ~$800-$900 budget?) before we leave? What to do...what to do....

Penny for your thoughts?

Fuz

[Dig-on]

I honestly do not believe changing brands is going to make a difference. If you are finding clad, you will find silver. Silver rings up almost the same, if not better.
About the guy following you and finding a dime. Unless the both of you swung the exact, and I mean EXACT same path, there is no way to say that it is the machine. You have to realize that you may cover the same amount of ground on the surface, but where the signal goes below the surface it is a much smaller coverage.
My opinion is that your coil just hasn't gone over the silver coin yet

[hawgdawg]

Sounds like you're doing pretty good with the AT....jumping on a whites and getting rid of the AT...you might have a learning curve and not learn all the tricks before hitting that family gold mine....then you would really be pissed.....as far as missing that one silver dime...it doesn't take but about an inch to miss one.....if you can get the whites and keep the AT....I would go that route...for a while......these are just my opinions...good luck

[Diggler]

Sorry I can't help. I spaced out reading your post at "300 rings in one day" and lost track of the topic.

[DirtAngler]

Probably the first thing to do is hunt with of your White's friends and just check signals for awhile before he digs to see if his machine is actually outperforming yours or if it is the case of his coil going over silver and yours isn't. Also, what signals are you passing up that maybe he isn't? Could be you are trusting your machines VDI numbers too much or discriminating too much out. Personally, I like to coin and jewelry hunt and usually dig everything above iron. If cherry picking, I'll skip zinc signals but know I could be missing jewelry. If you're ignoring copper penny signals, you're probably missing silver dimes as well.

[schill13]

I used every machine on the market and I had great luck with the At Pro!
I had mine for 7 months now and just started to hit silver constant!
I just pick up my ctx 3030 and I like it but the At pro is a lot more fun to to use and a lot lighter. For the money the pro is hard to beat! Good Luck

[ga5150]

I think I'd stick with the machine I know for the Thanksgiving hunt and see how that goes.

You're considering getting a new machine in the 800-900 range. Is this replacing the AT Pro, or in addition to the AT Pro?

If you had them both, you could find out which one seems to work better for you.

I do like the idea of shadowing one of the buddies with a Whites and check each diggable signal. It'd be a pain for a few hours, but it should be a great learning experience.


Rodney

[hunter081]

it may be hard to believe but i have a garraett ace250 with the stock coil and 8.5x11DD coil. My friend uses a XP Dues and We hunt together and we both hit same targets and he hasnt out hunted me and I havent out hunted him. Yes the cost and feature of the xp way out performs the ace but in overall true hunting performance.....Im keeping up with him.

[blk86trbo]

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the machines that you are talking about, but I want to hunt with you! Did I say I love Colorado?

Seriously though, best of luck and thanks for serving our Country!

[dogpound]

don't hunt with any more buddies and you won't get out hunted

[GoGoGopher]

Originally Posted by dogpound

don't hunt with any more buddies and you won't get out hunted

LOL...Ain't that the truth...

But seriously...It is all about learning and trusting your machine...The ATs actually like a faster swing speed...Set your SENS as high as you can without falsing, manually Ground Balance, then drop the number down manually about 5 points...This will make your machine more sensitive to the Silver...Run your Iron DISC no higher than 35, and notch out NOTHING...dig ALL repeatable signals that do not grunt.

HH,

PS...If you really want a new machine, get a Fisher CZ-3D...great on deep Silvers!

[Dark Chameleon]

You dont say how long you've been using your AT Pro?.

If you have only been using it for a couple of months then you may need more time or are second guessing yourself and digging everything or thinking the sound of iron near it means it and in a lot of cases it can be as simple as a nail next to what your digging.

I'm using mine open wide now, iron disc to max 40 but iron audio either one fully or if i want to cover more area then turned off and only check before i dig.

The at pro has found me plenty of silver, not many silver coins but ive got three war nickels and a rosie so it does find them, i guarentee if you go over a silver coin and its open wide you will find it..they almost blow your ears off...like a wheatie does..and i have found more then 30 of them since june when i got my at pro (my first machine) and it has taught me quickly and id agree with another commentor when they say to stop relying so much on the vdi...sound will always out.

I have found deep stuff and small stuff that didnt even give vdi numbers but had that weak mid tone or high tone....and i have found a staple with mine too...in the tot lot 4" down.

I'd also got .22 bullets 10" down in the woods, its a great machine if you let it off the leash...id say learn your tones, open it wide, once youve got the wire rolled tight to the shaft it shouldnt effect your hunting and keep gb'ing whenever you change places (or you can chase your tail for ages with phantom targets).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doHQjoQmr1E

I know learning on pro zero wide open can be annoying in parks but in fields and woods it actually feels like a $600 machine, hell it feels like a $1200 machine

[Martin_V3i]

What Whites models are your friends using? Some are coin killers, some ain't. Just don't make the move to Whites and spend top dollar until you know one from the other.

[skeeterbait]

i went from a ace 250 to a minelab se proA(used) now to the garrett ATPRO i wont be ungrading or changing for a long time check out my link to 16 silvers in one field 8 quarters 5 dimes 2 rings 1 charm necklace all from one field my deepest target was 9-10inches under a thick tree root im very happy with mine! to each his own good luck and happy hunting,,,heres the link,,,http://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=130190

[bigstemz]

like has been stated already, changing machines wont help much. Yes some machines fair better in different conditions but for the majority of your hunting most machines in the AT PRO bracket will be about similar. Id suggest not listening to much to what your friends or hunting partners say to you. Getting psyched out is real and it sounds like its happening to you. My best advice is SLOW DOWN. Going slow will always find you more targets. And remember take everything anyone tells you with a grain of salt, friends included, . . . . . the fish is always bigger in the story.

[Digit up Damon]

What to do ? We hear you !!! When I got mine I flipped through the book got it to turn on and went right to pro mode , and never looked back ding ding silver . It hits loud every time !!! You can try STD mode it's a lot more friendly , Witch every way you do it should work . Maybe next time be the first out of the truck and first in the field .... Keep your head up your time will come. Good luck !

[fuzymunky]

Originally Posted by blk86trbo

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with the machines that you are talking about, but I want to hunt with you! Did I say I love Colorado?

Seriously though, best of luck and thanks for serving our Country!

Come on down! (Or up..or sideways?)

[fuzymunky]

Originally Posted by Martin_V3i

What Whites models are your friends using? Some are coin killers, some ain't. Just don't make the move to Whites and spend top dollar until you know one from the other.

All of them use and suggest the DFX 300 for what I'm looking for (coins/jewelry)

[Grumpysrb]

There's several great ideas here. I like the these, 1)Hunt with a Whites owner and compare with the same hits. 2)Buy the Whites and see if tou do any better. But what if You don't? OR 3) At the next group hunt try out the Whites while they try out the AT Pro, and see how each other does.

I don't know how long you've hunted with the AT Pro, but it took me several months of detecting almost daily and Youtube to figure out what I was doing(wrong). I learned more from the video.