Five Hundred and Sixty Two Coins (562) from Machine Gun Beach in 6 Days (27.5 hrs)!

[TampaBayBrad]

There is a place here called Gandy Beach inside Tampa Bay on the Gandy Blvd. causeway St. Pete side. Us locals call it Redneck Riviera due to the drunken clientele that hang out there. It would give Machine Gun Beach a run for it's money. More pull tabs, bottle caps, and sinkers than I've seen anywhere else. If you're a "dig it all" type, you would spend a 6 hour hunt clearing a ten foot square.

 

[KOB]

Oh, before metal detectors, that is exactly what beach hunters did - rake and sift through the sand to find lost valuables. In fact, a few yrs ago I saw people on the beach via a Web cam raking the beach and I just knew they had lost something of value, probably a ring. Too far away to help, I visited the beach weeks later and searched the area where the people were raking. No luck. But just off the boardwalk leading to the area of beach about 10 yrs away, I found a nice gold ring.

Thanks for painting a much broader picture of what your dealing with. The most important is the beach/marsh/terrain. This is not your easy to dig and scoop sandy / wet beach. I move much slower now. I'm normally an impatient guy and have always walked with a long gait. Even though we used to talk about how many ounces of gold we found in a month , I wonder now how much I missed by moving too fast , particularly the deep gold. But now I can understand why nobody wants to hunt your MG beach.

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

The 2D display is an ID plotter. As such, it has no ability to distinguish between nonferrous trash and treasure, any better than tones and/or TID. In fact, it's easily argued that the 2D screen is less accurate on all nonferrous targets than tones and/or TID.

A main issue with air tests and TID, is that tester typically swings the object at a certain distance away from the coil, and with the object facing "flat" towards the coil. In the ground, if the object is closer or further to the coil, or the object is not lying flat (most won't be lying flat), then the TID will be very different.

I can see notching out high conductors if the beach is full of clad coins, for the reasons others have stated. BUT, if one is looking for gold, then notching out anything below zinc is a big mistake IMO. Granted, the reply to that would be, "If I don't try to notch out some foil or tabs, then I would be constantly digging foil and tabs". Well ya, that's the way it is unless one is hunting in the water.

I try to use all information available to maximize my gold ring finds, including 2-D plots. Based on my small sample of 60+ gold rings (most are my Wife's, now) I know the characteristic 2-D plot of gold rings (not only when they are well within detection range but also as they approach and reach threshold). Just one more piece of info when facing the decision to dig/not dig.

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

There is a place here called Gandy Beach inside Tampa Bay on the Gandy Blvd. causeway St. Pete side. Us locals call it Redneck Riviera due to the drunken clientele that hang out there. It would give Machine Gun Beach a run for it's money. More pull tabs, bottle caps, and sinkers than I've seen anywhere else. If you're a "dig it all" type, you would spend a 6 hour hunt clearing a ten foot square.

If this were a treasure map, which it is, you're basically on top of it!
Hit the nail on the head, nearly. Only sadistic types (I'm ex-catholic) hunt THESE types of places.

 

[Surf Master]

( but my GUT is saying Chiefs ) Sorry bro. , I was right

 

[CalReg]

Impressive...I'm with you. I'm not a young buck anymore, and if I miss a ring or two because I've notched them out, well, congrats to the finder. Even hunting three hours in all metal mode with no discrimination makes my back ache!

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

That's alot of targets for not 1 gold.

Absolutely right! My average this season was about 209 coins/gold (any type of gold) when averaging dry sand, low tide and water hunts BEFORE I started hunting Machine gun beach. This beach is killing my average, it went up to 350/gold! Luckily, I just added another gold ring, from another beach, to help reduce my average, now stands at 250/gold.

 

[LawrencetheMDer]

I have tried to clarify the earlier graphed info and have replotted the info for gold rings and for tabs and parts for the Manticore VIDs on separate graphs.

The first graph shows Manticore VID (grouped in 10s) on the X axis and the percentage of Tabs & parts on the Y axis. First, note that the VIDs for Tabs & parts range from the first group (0-9) and lowest was 7 to a high grouping of 40-49 with the highest VID for the sample being 47 on the Manticore. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Tabs and parts can’t be detected above, say. 50, but that the probability is very low compared to other VIDs for Tabs and parts. Tab and parts peak in the 30-39 range (actually VID =32). An MDer could screen-out or eliminate 74% of Tabs and parts by screening-out VIDs on the Manticore from 30 to 49. But how many gold rings would you sacrifice by screening out VIDs from 30 to 49? That information is presented in the second graph.

The second graph is similar to the first except shown is percent of gold rings (Y-axis) with the corresponding VIDs on the Manticore. Gold rings ranged from a VID of 0-9 (actual lowest VID was 7) to 60-69 (highest in sample was VID of 66). Again, this doesn’t necessarily mean that gold rings can’t be found below 7 or above 66, just that the probabilities are low compared to other VIDs for gold rings. In figure 2, note that most gold rings are found between a VID of 10 and 29; 67.5%. Fifteen percent (15%) of gold rings can be found between a VID of 30 and 49 on the Manticore (7.5% between 30-39, 7.5% between 40-49). About seventeen percent (17.5%) of gold rings are found with a VID of 50 to 69. None of the sample gold ring (40), or recent additions (8) not included below, had a VID above 69.

I find this information very important and useful. If one is serious about searching for gold rings, specifically, it makes perfect sense to eliminate VIDs above 70, as someone suggested earlier. Very few gold rings will be found at these levels. One would be sacrificing some cents, all dimes and quarters, halves and dollar coins and all the larger junk.

However, eliminating VIDs above 70 would not necessarily help with all the tabs and parts, leaving these mostly unaffected. In order to put a dent on the tabs and parts targets, one would have to eliminate VIDs between 30 and 49, where 74% of Tabs and parts are located. The choice is yours.
Happy Hunting