Disappointed in Detecting Church Built 1860

Digger will chime in here for you hopefully. But IMO I would be using the stock coil first and covering ground and clear all the solid targets. The smaller coil is great at target separation but not as deep of a coil as the stock. But either way you look at it you will dig trash and the old coins don't just pop out for you. Stay with it and you will find the good stuff! Another thing is that the area may have been hit already years ago and all the easy targets are gone. There will be stuuf there still but just tougher to find.

I too have an old church that I am in the process of getting permission for. I have heard from people that some parts or the church are the original and some are the newer places. A lot of times a parking lot can cover up what was once the oldest part of the church.

Your best bet right now would be to take a look at some old photographs or maps. look at where the parking was, walkways, entrances and try to determine if that ground can still be detected (not covered up by a parking lot). Check next to the old trees if there are any or maybe some other spots where people would have gathered

Listen...you just need a little more time in to actually learn the basics.
This is a great site to hunt, but it might be a bit advanced for you considering you need a bit more time in to get a handle on the language and to make sense of what you are seeing in the screen and the F2's behavior.

Trust me, it will will all come together for you and make a lot more sense...eventually.
You will actually laugh at what you think you know now and what you will know in the future with a little bit more experience.
This is normal, it happens to all of us and it even happened to me.
When I first started using the F2 I had trouble making sense of what I was seeing too, I had jumping numbers all over the place and dug more empty holes and I care to admit.
Some of those holes were pretty large, if you were on the moon I bet you could make them out pretty easily, but slowly and surely things change and I got way better.
You will too... just have patience.
Keep in mind I had hundreds of hours with other detectors before I picked up this one so I had a lot of the basics down pat...but it still took a while to understand this ultra sensitive little beast of a detector.

Some suggestions...

Keep using that sniper coil, it makes it a lot easier for you to get the hang of swinging the center of the coil over targets and if you can do that your number should calm down a lot and get more stable.
Swing speed is very important to get more stable numbers.
Try for a speed of about one second per foot because if you go too fast over targets you will definitely get jumpy numbers.
Sites that have a lot of trash will also be jumpy and confusing because you might be swinging over more than one target at one time and even targets that are near other targets but not under the coil can register somehow on the screen because this is a very sensitive unit.

Try a park site or two...maybe hit a tot lot if you have some near you, a lot less trash to deal with usually, if you stay away from trash pits like picnic pavilions, anyway.

The more you dig, the better you center the coil over the target at the correct swing speed, any coil, the more stable the numbers should become but this is not innate...it does take a little practice.

Turn the sense down if you are at sites with extreme jumping without moving the coil over the ground.
True, you do lose a bit of depth but this thing is so overpowered coming out of the factory that you won't lose much... even on the lowest sensitivity setting.
I have picked up tiny pieces of chains and other good targets like coins easily 5 to 6 inches deep on the lowest setting using the sniper coil.

As far as the depth meter don't believe it all that much.
It is supposed to be about 2 inches of depth for each bar on coin sized objects, but in my experience more often than not it is wrong.
Hit the pinpoint button and look at the number on the screen when it is at its lowest and that will be a more accurate reading of the target you are swinging over if it is small like a coin or ring.
Cans will show shallow but could actually very deep and if you raise your coil pretty high over these things and still get a pretty solid signal it ain't going to be a coin or ring.

I worked hard for a long time and hundreds of hours to get good enough to be able to swing my coil over the center of the target with the center of the coil and at the right speed with little side to side swipes to get most targets to settle down to like a 2 number jump...good targets will usually be that way if you work that coil correctly, some trash is going to jump more than 2 numbers no matter what you do.
Sometimes way, way more than 2 numbers.
Don't worry about that right now, try to get a 2 to 3 or 4 number jump consistently and if you do the chances are good that you will probably have something under the coil that you can dig.
The more practice you get the better you will be at calming those numbers down and digging holes with actual targets in them.

Again, have patience, and do a search on my name and plug in words like F2, sniper coil and others because I have written much on this forum on how I learned to use this great unit as I used it, and there are others all over this forum that got good with it too.

You are still a total newbie with this thing...frustration is just a fact of life at this point and normal.
That will change, get better and less confusing and way more productive over time.
You'll see.

HH

Thanks for the replies and suggestions Coin Chaser, Dflan83 and DIGGER 27. I know I still have a lot to learn.

The targets have to be there to find them... Keep practicing!


I hit an 1888 church and just KNEW that I was going to find some silver... 5 hours later I hadn't found one coin!

It is possible that someone already hit that church and got all of the obvious coins.

Look for shady spots where people may have sat to keep cool. Look at aerial maps and find any clearings that may have held church functions.

Don't be afraid to get into the grown up brush and detect. Maybe back then that brush wasn't there, and any other detectorist may have felt like it was too much trouble.

Go where others would not, and you will be rewarded where they were not!

If your oldest clad was 1965 I'm guessing someone hit it before you.

Ive hunted some old church grounds and never found anything but clad and trash at any except for one where I found a large cent , some indian head pennies and a few mercury dimes , but this church was back down an old dirt road in the middle of nowhere. It was well hidden and had not been touched with a metal detector.....but the others were most likely hunted hard for a while since they were right out in the open on well traveled roads.

Its all just part of the thrill of the hunt , you can get lucky or you can get skunked.

You have hunted it twice...with a machine you haven't had for a whole season yet...and you are disappointed? Any chance you may not be the first person to use a detector there?

with the small coil you are not going to get very deep where the old coins reside ...

Don't give up....... Keep swinging. I bet there's cool stuff all over. Good luck, be sure to photograph that box of silver coins when you dig them up!

Are you sure nobody came thru there using a super tuned tesoro in the past seriously joking aside maybe someone did hit it already..

not even sure if you mentioned it but do you have a target garden at home, I have 5 of each coin buried at 5 different depths, an old gold and silver ring and a beat up gold chain, caps and pull tabs, a couple nails, and some random old jewlery stuff all buried in the back yard for checking my machines and keeping familar with the sounds.

I know this is an old post . I just wanted to comment on the part about hunting on a slope. Try hunting along the bottom of the slope where the ground levels out if possible. Gravity and erosion will "pull" the goodies to that area. I've had good luck there many times.

Lax.

It all depends on if it's a Baptist Church

In all seriousness, I have heavily detected my church and found not one silver. Mof, all I found was a ton of foil and beaver tails. Total loot = 1 lawn mowered dime and 1 quarter.

Side Note. The church has history (burned to the ground by Morgan during his raid) and was originally built in the 1840's. Though the original site has shifted about 100' since being rebuilt, I have zapped the entire grounds with my Cibola... nada!

I'm thinking serious ground work has either buried the good stuff way, way deep, or scraped it away.

Coins have to be there for you to find them!

I know this is an older post, but for anyone new reading it and feeling frustrated I'm going to add my two cents. I have been detecting for almost 20 years now with several different units. Every time you pick up a different detector, there is SOME amount of a learning curve. I just bought a used X-Terra 505 and I am just starting to learn it's language. For a total newbie, the learning curve is going to be a little longer than for a seasoned detectorist, but we all have to learn a new detector. To put it in perspective, my 505 is still a little frustrating to me. I'm digging a lot of trash to learn how it responds right now, but if I pick up my old White's Eagle Spectrum, I suddenly turn into a coin magnet! I was using the 505 in an old park in my area for an hour and a half the other day and had found 18 cents. I switched to the spectrum to get a break and pulled 5 quarters, 3 dimes (clad) and several lincolns in a matter of 30-40 minutes. BUT I also pulled out a 35 Merc from about 6". Why? Because I KNOW that unit. I'll be able to do the same thing with my Minelab in time. Reach out to the people on here that use your detector and ask for advice. Read old posts. But most importantly, get out and practice with your machine! Nothing beats time out in the field!