Metal Detecting 101. (How to Get Started)

what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of ram detecting this video is going to be a little bit different from the normal videos we do on this channel it seems like every day or just about every day i get questions like uh i'm just getting into metal detecting uh what detector should i get uh where should i go and things like that so today we're gonna touch bases on that and maybe do a little metal detecting 101 and kind of give you some tips and tricks and a good footing to start out on your metal detecting journey so please stay tuned i hope you enjoy this i hope you get a little bit of information and please leave comments down below if you have any other questions that you like for me or some of my friends to answer for you so the first question i usually get is mark i'm uh i'm new into metal detecting uh and i want to get started what metal detector do i get well there are many many answers to this and everybody's probably going to tell you something different but i'm going to give you my opinion i think that you should get something that is user-friendly also good on the budget uh being a new detector you don't wanna go out and spend a thousand dollars and then figure out hey i really don't i really don't like this so you want to find something that is user friendly easy on the budget today for just demonstration purposes i'm going to be using this land ranger pro by bounty hunter bounty hunter makes all kinds of great metal detectors made right here in the usa awesome warranties good people to work with and in my opinion you can't go wrong with those guys they make all kinds of machines that's easy for beginners to use and all the way up for advanced detectors like myself so do your research and talk to people and make sure you're getting the best detector that's set up for you and and and the things you want to hunt if you're a relic hunter you might want to have a different uh machine than say a coin shooting guy do your research i'm always happy to help and try to point you in the right direction you want something that's going to be easy to use that's not going to be discouraging with a bunch of settings and stuff you want something that's going to be easy turn on and go and my friends over at bounty hunter i think have pretty much the best machines for the beginners and people that's just starting out into metal detecting and like i said all the way up to uh the advanced detectors like the land ranger pro and the time ranger pro i'll absolutely love the time ranger pro as one of my favorite detectors and uh you see me using it all the time and it's because i love that machine the next question i hear all the time is uh oh i got a brand new detector where's a good place in my area to go well you know that's a loaded question because probably the places that people are going to tell you are the places that people go all the time such as parks and things of that nature what i think you should do start out in your yard get to know your machine get to know the settings read the manual learn what different things sound like on your machine get to know it learn how to dig a plug all these things i'm going to try to show you in this video uh on how to make you just a little bit better prepared to get out when you do hit a park or you do hit somewhere in the public and you won't make a mess of things you'll have a better chance of finding uh some treasure okay before we get into some tips let's talk about a few of the tools you're going to need or i think you need is gonna make your life a lot easier besides your metal detector you need a good shovel uh this is the root slayer nomad i really highly recommend that shovel it's uh easy on the budget and they have a great warranty and it's pretty tough but on top of that get yourself a good hand digger because this is going to be coming in handy especially in situations like parks and stuff where you don't want to bring a big shovel and uh it might intimidate a few people so having a hand digger is really useful tool especially sometimes you can't get in underneath roots and stuff with a big shovel it's really nice to have that small hand digger that's the digger uh from bounty hunter first texas products uh really good digger i highly recommend that one also get yourself a pin pointer this is gonna save you a ton of time this is the fischer f pulse it's the best pin pointer i've ever used it's uh it's a game been a game changer for me but this is the fisher f pulse you don't have to particularly get this one but they make all kinds of different ones technetix uh tech point and the bounty hunter has a great little pin pointer uh get yourself a pin pointer it will save you some time another thing i like to have is a little pouch set up like this this is like a little fanny pack and this is a dick pouch uh from my good friends over at calico it's got a mesh bottom in it and i like to have a little pouch belt set up like that uh to keep my pin pointer on and my digger uh and all that and it's good to keep your trash and your treasures separate and it's just a good tool to have all these things will help you in the long run i highly recommend a good pin pointer and uh digging a little hand digger those are a little a few little extra tools it isn't 100 necessary they're great things to have and i think they'll help you out all right let's talk about the detector first of all you want to you want to get a detector that you're going to feel comfortable with this one is very lightweight this is the bounty hunter land ranger pro if you want to see an unboxing video of this and me putting it together i'll leave a link down below uh but you want something that's gonna be really easy for you to use when you're first getting started because you don't want something that's so complicated uh that you're not gonna be able to figure it out uh and it's really discouraging uh when you can't so i'm going to do some demonstrations with this machine and give you some general tips that'll work on any machine to help you be more successful first we're going to talk about sensitivity on these machines you need to run your sensitivity where it's the most comfortable for you all the way up isn't always necessarily the best uh you need to run it where you're not getting a lot of chatters as a demonstration i've got this machine turned all the way up and you hear all the emi uh it's picking up my phone and stuff like that so you want to run it you want to run it to where it stops your chatter see how that stops run it to where it stops your chatter make sure if your machine has a ground balancing mode you ground balance it and um that will help a lot on basically any machine that you have also another thing about sensitivity uh you can probably go over to my good friend craig burns and check out some of his videos because he runs uh low sensitivity a lot and finds a lot of cool stuff sensitivity can mask targets and also can make them seem a lot bigger than they appear so you got to be careful with that button okay guys the next thing i want to talk about is your basic setup and swinging of your machine i see a lot of people use different techniques but a lot of newbies just really don't know how to simply swing the detector so first of all you want to have the detector where it's set where it's barely off the ground you barely want to be touching the ground okay have your coil level to the ground at all times i see i go around and i see a lot of people have their new new machines and they'll have their coils out like that and and whatnot so keep your coil low to the ground and level all the time okay so what i do i see a lot of people doing different things but this is what i do i use a slow and steady swing i usually go right across my body and i kind of make a u you see i'm making a u there a lot of people use little tight patterns and this is great when you're in the high grass or something little tight patterns but i just keep it low and slow low and slow okay if you find yourself going too fast you'll do this number okay i don't know if you can see that but you're coming off the ground and sometimes you can look at the bottom of your coil and you can tell that by the scratches in it but low and slow okay i usually make a kind of a grid pattern i kind of overlap my other and i turn around and go again and just kind of zig not really zigzag but you know back and forth back and forth like you you know doing a roll until you find a target so what do you do when you find a target okay so you're coming along you find a target so what i like to do is a basic pinpointing method so what you do you find where your target is and you start backing off until you don't hear it anymore okay when you don't hear it anymore in your head imagine that spot right there okay imagine that spot so what you want to do you want to turn 180 degrees from that spot and start again until you hear your target and back off a little bit until you don't hear it anymore okay where those two lines intersect bam bam there's your target right so what you want to do when you get ready to dig you want to come out i usually come out about that far from my center of my target whereas where where i don't hear it anymore with my coil and that's where i start digging my plug so that's an easy easy way to pinpoint a target also these machines a lot of them have a handy feature called the pinpoint button i use this sometimes but not a whole lot i usually use this method but on these machines say like the land ranger pro here at the center of the coil right here there's a little dot and when you get up you can press that button and when you get over the machine you hear it getting louder [Music] where it's the loudest point in the center of that coil [Music] that's where your target is so these these buttons are pretty handy but sometimes [Music] sometimes it's good to go ahead and check with that first method that i that i showed you i find that that's a pretty good method okay so you pinpointed it another thing you can listen for is the tone of your machine you can tell depth a lot of the times by how loud or how quiet uh the target is you can tell a lot of things uh by that you can tell the depth and you can tell also tell the shape and size of it sometimes by just uh remembering your head where those points are we knew that this target right here which is just an old lid a little bottle lid we knew this target was really small because of the where the points intersect right but if it was a larger if it was a larger target we would had a much wider uh pattern there so listen to your machine and you can tell this was really loud if this was say you know six inches down it would have been quieter so take time bury some items in your backyard at different at different depths and see what your machine sounds like on targets at different depths that is a great great tip and i highly recommend you doing that i highly recommend you doing that before you go out in public and start digging massive holes uh kind of get used to knowing what the size of your target is and uh how big of a plug you need to dig now let's get over here and i want to show you some tips on how to dig a plug now we're going to show you how to dig a plug probably the most important thing that you're probably going to learn on this video okay guys so you found your target you located your target you found the center where your target is and you backed off to where you can no longer hear that target so what i like to do i take my shovel find that spot and i go straight down make sure your your shovel straight down i see a lot of people coming in at an angle but you don't want to do that because what that does it cuts the roots going in to your plug the roots of the grass it also gives you a higher chance of hitting your target if you got a a nice silver coin you don't want to do that so make sure your shovel is straight down okay so we knew what size and shape of our our uh our target is we know how big of a plug to dig so i like i said i always go straight down and then i dig a semi-circle right kind of a horseshoe pattern see how i'm going straight down with my shovel i dig a half circle almost half circle i leave a little bit of lip see how i left a little bit of a lip there and then all you have to do is come straight down at the top of your of your plug and she'll come right out and you can plop it over just like that okay from here you got your plug opened up you need to locate your target so the first step i always do i go back over it with my metal detector right you want to swing over your plug nope it's not there then you dig swing back in your hole there it is and you kind of get a sense of where it's at so we know it's in the hole right you can do one of two things i see people do you can take your shovel and you can go back in dig it out or you can get down with a pinpointer which is what i prefer to do because i don't like the method of digging back down because you have more of a chance of hitting your coin or your relic that's in the hole and we don't want to damage if it's a nice silver coin so i take my pin pointer turn it on and and i try to locate the target it gets faster and faster the closer you get to your target so we know my target's right under my pin pointer and we see it right there and we just pluck it out looks like we got a nice mercury dime check that out this is what we're looking for guys okay after we recovered our target and put it up in a safe place we want to patch our hole to where it looks like we've we've never been there okay now i know in some soil contain soil conditions sandy soil and if it's really really dry you're not going to be able to make a perfect plug like this but do the best you can because especially if we're if you're in a public place like a park and other thing other places like that or somebody's house you don't want to leave a mess and you don't want to leave trash and you don't want to leave an open plug you want it to look good on all of us it's not only reflecting you it reflects all of us okay so we want to put our plug back and that's why i leave this little lip right here it's really easy it's like a little lid you can just pop it back down in there see and just try to make it good do the best job you can and i like to just get up after i get it down in there i like to get up and just you know press it down with my foot and try to clean up as best you can and and uh the goal is to make it look like you've never been there i want you to practice this practice this get really good at it okay i want you to to practice even if there's nothing in the hole i just want you to practice dig it digging that little little plug i mean some people take it all the way out but i like to do that that right there and leave a little a little tab at the top so it can fold right back in place where it was at i see a lot of people even carrying uh towels and stuff like that to put the dirt on especially if you're in a in a uh somebody's yard that you that is really pristine and they they don't want you messing their yard up they take the dirt and extra dirt and stuff out of the hole when they're locating their target and put them on that towel so you can just dump it right back into the plug so those are some few tips i want you to practice this this is uh in my opinion one of the most important tips that i can give you is please dig proper proper plugs and always take whatever you found out of the hole i don't care if it's trash or treasure take your take your uh item out your trash if it's canson pull tab whatever and dispose of it properly all right so you learn how to properly dig a plug and locate your targets and you understand what different things sound like on your machine and the depths and the size that uh they make on your machine uh then and only then in my opinion is it good to go out trying to find permissions and digging in public places start in your own yard branch out to your family and friends yards and then and after you get comfortable and really good at those those skills then branch out the next question i get all the time is okay i just got my machine i i've learned it pretty good and uh i'm just digging junk i'm just digging junk mark i'm how do you do it i'm just jigging junk these youtube these youtube videos uh make it look easy uh and uh it's a little bit of lie all right i'm gonna just go ahead and tell you that we dig a ton a ton of trash to guys i'll leave a lot of it in my videos and uh and i think that's why some of you guys like watching it because you know it's it's real detecting you see what i dig you see the trash uh we dig a lot of trash you gotta dig through the trash to get to the treasure a lot of those things sounds like uh some good stuff so you got to dig every single now once you get used to uh the your machine and you know what certain stuff sounds like you can kind of weed out just by ear trash sometimes but i don't recommend you doing that if you're new to this go ahead and dig everything you never know what's going to pop out of that hole guys make sure you got your settings uh on your machine properly set up for the conditions that you're in okay read your manual there's tons of videos on youtube on every metal detector i don't care what you got somebody's using it and if it's uh any of the products that i use the bounty hunter products or anything else i can help you out give me a shout i don't mind helping you at all uh i hope i hope you guys are sticking around and watching this uh because there's still some useful tips to come okay so you branched out uh you dug your families your friends you branched out and hit a few parks you want to dig some history you want to do some research uh you want to do uh you want to get on some of those sites that you see people pulling those uh civil war bullets and stuff like that you got to do your research guys tons and tons and tons of information out on the internet go to your local library that is one of one of the best tips i can give you go to your local library and ask them about your local history and find out where things happen find out who owns that land and uh go talk to them and say hey my name's uh mark i uh i'm uh very interested in the history of our uh local area here or the area that you're that you're trying to hunt and uh i would like to get the opportunity to go out and uh do some metal detecting on your property and i'm happy to show you anything i find and and usually nine times out of ten you know you'll get those no's but a lot of the times if you're respectful and you explain yourself and tell them who you are and what you want to do and uh explain you know you're proficient and you and you won't leave a mess you'll get rid of trash for them a lot of the times they'll say yes so do your research go to your local library local museums uh talk to the older people in your community the elders they know where stuff happens they know where old home places were and stuff like that uh get the information and then go from there uh practice uh practice talking uh to that landowner before you go so you won't be so nervous i know i still get nervous when i talk to people uh if i don't know them i have a lot of anxiety and i'll and i'll get nervous uh beforehand but uh just be real with them tell them what you want to do and and uh a lot of the times they're gonna say yes uh and if they say no what has it hurt you know just go on to the next spot uh it happens to everybody you're gonna get those no's especially this time day and age uh with everything that's going on in the world a lot of people are uh uh are private so don't take it personally and just keep going all right guys i hope i helped you out i get these questions every day if there's anything that i miss anything you want me to touch bases on please feel free to leave it down in the comments i'm doing this for you new guys uh and if you any of you veterans and you uh diggers that uh i've been doing this picked up any information maybe i'll do something a little different than you um great but uh read those coda ethics i'm gonna put those in this video i want you to read those code ethics practice talking to those landowners practice digging those plugs that's really important don't get discouraged guys you're going to dig a lot of trash a lot of trash you're getting you're you're not only uh getting to learn your machine when you're doing that but you're cleaning up the environment just have a positive positive vibe on it also don't get rid of stuff you don't know what uh what it may be i have a lot of friends and i've done it myself had something that uh they thought was trash and wind up being something pretty cool so uh that's a pretty good little tip for you go back and watch some of my old videos and uh especially like if you're hitting top lots and stuff like that watch some of my old videos i've got good tips good pointers on on some of those don't get discouraged we all dig trash i don't care what these videos make it look like uh they're just highlight reels a lot of people just make highlight reels just remember that uh i hope you enjoy metal detecting you're the future of this of this hobby and it's so rewarding so much fun you get out in nature you get exercise you can do it with your family with your friends and you find a lot of cool history and a lot of cool stuff and that's some of the reasons i love it i met some of the best people and best friends that i have through metal detecting don't get discouraged i hope this video helps you if you liked it please give me a big thumbs up don't forget to hit the subscribe button we're going to be doing a big giveaway when i hit a thousand subscribers it's getting really close i like about a hundred now i think and uh like i say guys we'll see you next time bye you

Channel: RAM Detecting

Views: 18,006

Keywords: Metal detecting, Metal detector, How to metal detect, Metal Detecting 101, How to pinpoint metal detector, How to dig a plug, Bounty Hunter Metal Detectors, Land Ranger Pro, Ram Detecting

Id: 19CFbiUmHAI

Length: 27min 1sec (1621 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 17 2021