How to metal detect: Part 5 – Types of metal detecting

General Metal detecting

When people think of metal detecting different things may come to mind. Some like to park hunt while others like to comb the beach for lost jewelry. Most metal detecting hobbyist fall into the category of general metal detecting which includes a variety of conditions and targets such as old coins, lost jewelry, and other odds and ends. Places to hunt include sites with little or no trash to difficult sites that are littered with trash. Most metal detectors are suitable for a variety of conditions and do well for general detecting.

Coin Shooting

Coin shooting is the act of seeking out old coins. Instead of digging a variety of signals coin shooters will focus in on deep coin signals and often times try to skip lower conductivity signals such as small foil or pull tabs. Coin shooters actively seek out old sites where people could have lost coins and often times stay away from sites like modern beaches or playground areas. Metal detectors in the mid to low frequency range tend to do better for coins since they detect high conductivity targets such as silver at better depths.

Beach metal detecting

Beaches have a lot of activity and when people wear jewelry it’s inevitable that some will get lost. Rings fall off and chains break which presents a great opportunity to find lost items. General metal detectors usually do great on dry sand, but many have difficulty in salty wet sand and in salt water. If you’re looking to do some major beach hunting then an underwater or pulse induction machine will give you the best advantage. Also, higher frequency machines will detect low conductivity targets such as gold better.

Relic hunting

Nearly any lost item from long ago can be considered a relic. Religious items, war relics, and everyday metal objects can be considered relics. In the US Civil war relics are extremely popular and there are many detectorists that specialize in seeking out and finding old battle sites. For the most part hardly any discrimination is used when relic hunting and the metal detector is often run in all metal mode. Pulse induction and deep seeking detectors are even used to find deep buried tanks and other large objects.

Gold prospecting

You don’t have to be a miner to find gold nuggets. In certain parts of the country there are nuggets in the ground and freshwater streams. Specialized gold detecting is usually done with a metal detector that has a very high frequency so that it is sensitive to low conductivity targets such as small gold nuggets.