My name is Nathan Beard, I live in central Illinois. I've been detecting about 3 years consistently. I bought a White's XLT back in 2000 when I went to Ft. Myers, Fl. Then I got home and let it sit for about 10 years. What got me back into detecting was, back in 2011, I tore my Achilles tendon and as part of my recovery I figured I had to walk slow, so why not swing my metal detector. Been hooked since. I've found about 100 silver coins since I got back into it, among other goodies. I've posted some photos of my finds. (I don't photograph everything). I now swing a Minelab CTX3030, my White's XLT, and rarely my Fisher 1225x (although it is a good detector). Glad to be aboard.
This is me digging civil war bullets. Look how far my arm is in the hole and I'm holding a pinpointer. Figure 15" deep (at least). range. I found a total of 58 in an area 10' x 20'. I found a few in the 3" to 12" depths to begin with, and still saw targets on my CTX3030 (no audio signals though at those deeper depths over 12") so I continued digging down. I figure it must have been a target area. All 58 had been fired. There were actually about 30 more in the same area that my hunting partners retrieved, after I showed them where they were located. I believe they were .69 caliber. Very large bullets. Former site of Camp Lyon in Peoria.