I cannot tell you how incredible the CTX 3030 is in Iron……Wait! Yes I can!!!
I live in the country, and I love to hunt older home sites, more than anything else. You just never know what you might find.
I have been looking at an old house for 9 years, wanting to detect it. Then finally, 3 days ago, I noted a backhoe by the house, and the barns behind it were being torn down. This house appeared to be built around 1915 or so, and was on some acreage. Old Oak trees adorn the yard, begging to be searched beneath.
Well, 3 days ago, after seeing that it was being torn down, I wanted to scout the place. I went by on 3 different occasions during the day, in order to gain permission to hunt, but no one was there. I walked out under the massive oak in the front yard, and promptly heard buzzing in my ear. When I reached up to swat away the noisy critter, I got stung on my ear by a bee…….ouch! Ohhhh, the joys of hunting in the wild!
I looked around, and saw that the oak is abuzz with honey bees going in and out of 3 holes in the tree. Well, the other bees must have heard what the buzz was about and started my way……so I got out of there, ear pulsing in pain. LOL In 39 years of detecting, and at 60 years of old, I finally got hit by a honey bee out detecting.
Fast forward to yesterday. It had rained the night before, and was a bit chilly. I just knew that those bees wouldn’t want to be bothering me, so I went back to the old farmstead and caught the new owner who was tearing down the house, and was granted permission to hunt the property. Don’t you just love it when they say yes?
Visions of Standing Liberty Quarters and Barber Halves danced in my head as I broke out my CTX 3030, and put on my hunting armor. I decided to use the stock coil to begin with. I also have the 17" and the 6" Smart Coils as well, but for this hunt, I am using my stock coil. All of my CTX Smart Coils have worked incredibly well with the machine.
I was operating in multi-tone combo mode, gain at 27, threshold at 20, deep off, fast on. I soon discover that this place was infested with iron. But, at almost 100 hours of use, I am learning how to use this machine, so I slowed down, and let the machine do the math, picking up good signals between the iron, which is exceptional even with the stock coil.
Finally, about 30 minutes into my hunt, I get this weird signal……low tones, skippy, off just a bit is texture, but in the middle, from all around the center, I am getting a high squeal….12/43. Not a lot of modern trash on here, and depth shows about 8 inches when I do the “Minelab wiggle” and pinpoint to the sweet high note of treasure beneath the coil. I was seeing multiple targets under the coil, and a lot of scatter as I swept back and forth, enabling the CTX 3030 to give me all the information it could.
Lifting my coil off the ground, I was getting the high pitch more than anything, but was not losing the signal until about 8 inches or more in the air. Obviously a larger target than my SLQ….rats…..almost said to heck with it, but decided to dig it anyway, remembering that you don’t know what it is, until you dig it and know what it is. I was seeing multiple targets under the coil, and a lot of scatter as I swept back and forth, enabling the CTX 3030 to give me all the information it could.
So, I dug my wide horseshoe plug and run my pinpointer over it….metal! Or should I say N A I L S ! And lots of them. I ran the coil over the plug, and get that low grunt. Hoping my target is still in the hole, I run the coil over it and sure enough, 12=43 hits hard! I am 6 inches down, and it is still in the hole……Gotta love the depth of these machines.
Taking my hand digger from the sheath, I go around the edge, digging out and down, and then pulling the dirt out by hand. On the second handful, out pops this beauty! My very first 1851 Sword Belt Plate Buckle! She is headed for restoration this day! Then to a frame that already holds my 1850’s Knight’s Templar Buckle…….
I have hunted with Minelab machines since the Explorer series came out. I have had the Explorer, the Explorer II, the E-TRAC, and finally my CTX 3030. The CTX 3030 is by far the best machine I have ever swung in 39 plus years of detecting. Minelab has done it again with this machine!
Here are pics of the buckle and all the nails that were above and around the buckle. The CTX 3030 cuts through the trash like a laser, and seizes on my coolest find this year…..so far! Of course, where there is one…….
As soon as the old rock house is removed, you can bet your bottom dollar I will have that machine back looking for more treasures on the property!
Thanks Minelab, for the most awesome machine I have had the pleasure to swing!
HH
Dennis - TX, USA
