I received my new X-5 that I ordered from David on Wednesday (16th). I wasn't able to get out and start learning to use it until Saturday.

That morning I got up at 4:30, put the coffee on and walked out to get the morning paper. I could see flashes of lightning far off in the morning dark, and not a star showing through the cloud cover. I went back inside and had a couple of cups of coffee as I read the paper and worked the crossword.

At about a 5:45 I went back out and got in the truck with detector and accessories. It was a thirty five minute drive to the site, and I could see it wasn't getting much lighter except for the flashes of lightning embedded in the low hanging clouds.

I parked on the the side of the gravel road near the site and exited the vehicle with travel mug near empty. A few drops of rain had begun to fall. I could now hear the low rumbling of the thunder.....still several seconds behind the flash. I stood there contemplating whether I should attempt it or not as I finished my coffee.

Mosquitoes were buzzing around me like crazy.... calling for a thorough dousing with Deep Woods Off. I never did like the smell of that stuff, but the pesky buzzing critters seemed to think even less of it.

"Hey, I've waited 3 whole days to try this new machine out!" I said to myself as I strapped on my Relic Hunting Belt (A 7 pocket belt from Bass Pro).... stuck my modified Woman's Garden Shovel into it's loop.... grabbed the detector and headed into the woods to the site of a case shot blow that my buddies and I had hunted many times before.

Arriving there, I went through the MGB process, but flipped the switch to Fixed GB, and Disc set at 3 1/2. I stepped into a dry creek bed and began swinging the coil.

The first "digable" signal turned out to be a case shot at about 7 inches.. The second signal almost knocked my headphnes off. It was still there when I used the nickel target check .... still there at the zinc setting. I dug for it! At about 5 inches in the dry creek bed, I found it .... a 3 Merry Widows tin.... top and bottom. No, I have not opened to see its contents.

The rain was now getting a bit harder... but the X-5 is weatherproof, I remembered.... so I continued walking that creek bed that I and others had hunted before. There were some signals that I may not have dug on another trip.. but, I was getting used to a new machine.. testing it... learning its sounds, etc. I dug a couple of shotgun brass, and 3 spent 22's. And also allowed a 3 foot Timber Rattler (just a young un) to have his part of the creek bed as I detoured around him/her.... didn't care which.

Back into the creek bed, I began swinging the coil.
I dug a dropped Sharps flatbase, and another couple of case shot. I also dug a piece of Shrapnel, heavily rusted, and a couple of pieces of buck shot.

The rain was now coming down.... thunder and lightning all around. The X-5 would chatter and cut up when the lightning flashed. The Deep Woods Off had now washed off with the rain.... the mosquitoes were making a buffet of my arms and the back of my neck.... there whining becoming a real nuisance around my ears. Have you ever taken a deep breath... only to find one within that gulp of air? And, why is it... they always seem to get stuck in that one spot just at the entrance to your throat? I was thinking about heading back to the truck. It was still near dark at a quarter til 8:00. My t-shirt and jeans were sopping wet.... my glasses, I no longer could wipe off to dry them. And it's Dang Hard to see what you're digging with water running around on the inside of your lenses.

The next flash was a bit too close, and I decided to make a hasty retreat back to the truck. Scanning the ground on the way out of the woods, another good signal made me stop to retrieve it.... at the bottom of the shovel blade I found the small folded brass sheet in the picture.

Then another signal not far from the last.... the 3 pieces of melted lead were retrieved there. Okay, now it was coming down hard, my socks were squishing inside my waterproof boots. I was afraid the deer, squirrels, and other wildlife representatives would think how foolish it was for me to be out in this mess.... I turned the machine off and walked the next 300 yards back out to the truck.

I tossed the shovel in the back... the relic belt into the passenger seat, my T-shirt into the back seat, and set the X-5 into the passenger side... cranked the truck and pulled away, heading home. You know, you kinda wonder about your sanity after doing this a few times, huh?

Even hunting under these conditions, and the first time out with this machine, I found relics. And, I found them in an area that me and a couple of buddies have hunted for 7 or 8 years. I did find some of them at depth, although I did no measuring. I do know that a couple of the case shot were 7 to 8 inches deep.

I may have located more, but went through about 20 or 30 minutes of Black Sand hunting, having somehow flipped that switch without knowing it.

I like the audio tone on this machine... and true to the operators manual.... the deeper the target, the softer the sound. Yet of the "good" signals... the audio was still "quality" and repeatable.

All in all, I got to hunt about an hour and a half.
I think I'm gonna like this machine. But, It does take a bit of lunacy at times to hunt for relics ... as my wife reminded me when I got home!

Take Care,

Kim