Question for you diggers

J

jimmyk

Established Users
I'm curious to see if there are any of you as anal retentive as I am. I'm guessing there are. Since I started digging CW bullets around 1979 I've kept track of the total number dug. I dug all through the 80's and quit for fifteen years. Late last Fall I got the bug to go digging again. Today I hit a milestone. I dug my 7000th bullet. A nice shot .69 cal. three ring minie in excellent shape ( for being shot) It has the ramrod ring on the top and the overall integrity of the bullet is still intact. Meaning, it wasn't all "buggared up". Anyone else keeping a running total? Love to hear how many of you out there are keeping tabs, and what your totals are. Ball park guessing is accepted. :) I'm getting bored not being able to post or see other posters pictures. Got to do something to keep my interest up.

Thanks for indulging me and keep on diggin'

jimmyk in Missouri
 
Jimmyk,

Happy 7000th !!! :up I think it would be way fun for you to distribute the bullets to the group and start all over. This way every bullet you dig would be one you need for your collection. :grin:
 
I have given away more than Ive kept.

Maybe a thousand? I have about one hundred left in a small display.

I have kept most of the other campsite items or things I really like.

I have never bought anything. Everything Ive had/have, Ive dug.

I guess I kinda treat it like fishing. If I don't like it I throw it back. Or in this case, give it away.
 
Just got back from playing a round of golf! Yep! I'm gett'n bored fast and the summer ain't even started yet. ***Sigh*** It's going to be a long summer without swing'n the coil in the fields. I miss that more than anything. :(
Congratulations Jimmy on your 7,000th bullet!!! Holy Cow! 7,000 GOOD GRIEF!!! That's a whole lot of lead Jimmy!!!
Hmmm... Now let me see, I've got several glass cases of bullets, a box of fired bullets and a box of melted lead. I would guess I have around 800 good bullets. I just wish I could find some of them good old Confederate bullets and buttons. I'm gett'n bored finding them Yankee bullets! Oh by the way, I shot a 74.
 
74, KC? Not bad for nine holes. :grin: I used to play golf, but found it to be too jealous of a mistress. I had to play at least three times a week to shoot in the seventies. I just couldn't seem to relax and enjoy the game. Just too darn competitive.

It is the time of year hunting gets difficult. Tall grass and hot temps, not to mention those pesky blood sucking ticks. Not going to give up as long as I can still find some clear ground to hunt.

jimmyk in Missouri
 
Hi Jimmy K.

Congrats on number 7,000 ! That is a LOT of bullets.

I've been at this for 2 years and have about 120 bullets. I don't think that I would live long enough to get to 7,000. :)

Could you imagine how many you would have WITHOUT the 15 year layoff ? Geeeez.

Good job !

Rodney
 
Jimmy....are all those Missouri dug bullets ? If so.....that's REALLY some serious diggin' !!!!

I keep a journal for all my finds that includes GPS coords., weather conditions, depth of finds, quality of signal, misc info.. I have a poor memory these days and sometimes the relics run together so this keeps everything straight for me.

I started digging about 3 years ago but only recently started digging in my home state of Missouri. Journal says I've got 538 bullets. I don't have any super rare ones but have several nice ones nevertheless. My favorite is probably the French Triangle Base MM265. I'm also partial to Enfields.

Woods digging is the order of the day for me now. We had a hot one last weekend but the woods definitely saved us. Got a good 7 hours in. Brought back a few ticks but buttons were in the pouch too so I'll take a few ticks anyday.

HH
 
All were Missouri bullets, except about 35 dug in Arkansas near the Prairie Grove battle site. I've dug over 600 this year. About a third were campsite drops. The rest were shot bullets from skirmish and battlefield hunts. I appreciate you guys sharing. It's always fun to hear what others are doing. Haven't done much "woods" hunting. Snakes and ticks bother me...plus I don't have many leads in that area. If I found a good camp I'd probably give it a go.

Thanks, and keep on diggin'

jimmyk in Missouri
 
bullets

Jimmyk
7000 is in my mind an unreachable amount considering that I got a late start. I have been digging almost two years and have around two hundred bullets and the more I go the less i find. I don't know what it's like to find 50 bullets in one day of hunting (unless it's seeded). Some of the older hunters in the area said it was nothing to find 50 to 100 bullets in one day but no more in the area I hunt. I think that's why most have quit and told me of their secert spots. But as long as I find one I guess I will fight snakes, ticks, chiggers, and everything else that has attacked me in the last few weeks because I just like to see if I can find anything else. I am waiting to post some of my finds too.
Tim
 
My all time best day was in a new camp a friend and I came across in Rolla, Missouri. I was working third shift as a restaurant manager. I got off at 6:00 AM, took an hours nap, drove an hour to the new camp and hunted until I dropped. I had a pouch full of bullets which I cleaned after I got home. The final tally was 95 bullets. If I had known I was that close, I would have gone for a hundred.

I love hunting "hunted out" camps. I went back to one this Winter and started to work it slowly and meticulously. I have hunted about half the known camp before the grass got too tall and dug nearly 200 bullets out of it. Over a hundred were .36 cal. teardrop bullets. The owner told me he gets two to three hunters every Spring and Fall who hunt for awhile and quit with a total of two or three bullets. Persistence DOES pay off. There are limits, but my recommendation is know what a deep bullet sounds like in all metal. I dig lots of iffy signals in discrimination, but listening to the all metal sound gives me a huge edge. As I posted earlier, I've dug over 600 bullets this year. I have a couple of good spots that are producing for me right now, and I'm sure I'll "hit the wall" soon with them and will struggle to get finds, but I'll deal with that when it comes.

Bottom line, the easy stuff is gone, but the left overs can be very nice. I've found 12 of the .38 cal. Sharps multiring bullets. Sold one on eBay for $62. Traded four of them plus some teardorps for a 3" Parrott artillery shell. I found an 1853 one dollar gold piece in a "hunted out" camp. I love digging Civil war relics. Even shot bullets give me a kick.

Be glad the old timers are telling you where their good spots used to be. The equipment is better today, and when the finds were easy, they generally didn't concentrate on those iffy signals. They left a lot behind. Hone your detector skills and keep on diggin'

jimmyk in Missouri
 
Jimmyk,
I couldn't agree with you more on your last statement. I myself have learned to listen carefully what a deep bullet sounds like with the MXT. I am very fortunate in that the area I hunt is relatively "trash" free. In most cases, digging a deep tone where only the ALL METAL can reach, usually results into a nice deeply buried bullet or civil war relic. We all would be mesmerized if we knew what was down 3 or 4 feet in most of the fields we dig in. I do not live in an area that was inundated with civil war activity but what little I have to work with suits me just fine. It allows me to work the area more thoroughly giving me the satisfaction that others have missed the more deeply, harder to find relics! Gives me a sense of accomplishment I guess. After talking like this, it is giving me the bug to go down to a battlefield and hunt but I know the grass would be 3 feet tall right now so I will just have to be patient and wait till this fall. Jimmy, you take care and keep us posted! :grin:
 
You guys are spot on ! Learning to listen for the "deepies" is the key.
Last fall three of us went back to an old honey hole my brother in law had found several years ago. This is my very first dig site and the place of several of my relic firsts. It's the site of a gigantic Yankee cavalry camp (about 13,000 of Rosecran's troopers). Suffice it to say that this site has been pounded unmercifully by us and by an old hunter way before us. He got all the easy brass but left us loads of deep lead.
We have slowed waaaaayy down on this site and it still produces. In the back pasture over two days we dug over 100 Gallagher's ranging from 9-12 inches deep. Everyone of these had a "tiny" tone that you're imagining more than really hearing and who knows how many times we had walked over the top of them and ignored them entirely.
Two of us use Minelab Explorers and the third uses a Spectrum XLT. We have learned to dig those iffy tones everywhere we go. Sure you might end up digging more trash than you'd like on occasion but you just never know what you're leaving in the ground.
We've even found some quite decent and very deep targets in the rare seeded relic hunts we have hunted.

HH
BW
 
Glad to see we have a meeting of the minds and a clear hunting philosophy. I'm just glad you guys aren't hunting in my areas. :D Just kidding. Relic hunting has been reduced, for the most part, to a patient, meticulous form of recreational "mind games", where every signal has to be analyzed to the nth degree. By the end of a hunting day, I'm mentally drained.

Actually, it would be fun to get together and hunt a "cleaned out" spot and wring the last bit of goody out of it. At least until the NEXT generation of deep seeking detectors hit the market.

You guys keep on diggin'

jimmyk in Missouri

PS: Went out today and dug 23 bullets. Sorry. No pictures. :bawl
 
jimmyk said:
Actually, it would be fun to get together and hunt a "cleaned out" spot and wring the last bit of goody out of it. .
Click to expand...

It would be nice if at the very least we could get all of us Missouri guys together just for grins and swings. I might have to "donate" one of my sites and send you guys an invite. Of course it'd be even nicer if we could get somebody centrally located to donate a site. :grin:
Serious fun and learning for all !!!!

HH,
BW
 
Hey now! Don't forget about this little Kansas boy! I'm only a stones throw from you Missiouri boys across the Line. LOL!!! :grin:

Nice job Jimmy on finding them bullets today! Man, I think I'm going to take my weed eater and cut the field myself! I can't take it any longer!
 
Steve,
I won't hold it against you living on the "Jayhawker" side and I actually consider you a MO digger anyway. :grin:
 
Close enough for government work, KC. BTW, you were hunting plowed fields, too. Have they got too many crops to hunt, now?

jimmyk in Missouri (from a "border ruffian" to a "red legged jayhawker") :)
 
Yeah Jimmy, I'm afraid the crops are in full swing. Took a drive by there yesterday and looks like the beans are just coming up and in the other field the wheat is about 18" tall but it is brown and they should cut it maybe in July. I got one other spot about 40 miles away I don't think they planted anything yet. I'm going to check it out this weekend, what the heck, beats golfing. :wink:

Hey BW, I feel like one of the gang now, LOL!!! Hey, at least I was born and raised in MO., that should count for something. LOL!!!

Take care ya'll
 
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