Civil War Relic Hunting...part III
Civil War Bullets for Sale

I met my treasure hunting buddy Jeff Herke in Remington, Virginia for three days of civil war relic hunting.  We met at my uncles home which is also where we had planned to hunt.  There are 14 acres and the home was in use during the civil war.  I personally have been detecting the property since 1974.  It has been hit hard the last few years, mostly by myself and Jeff, but we still manage to pull up bullets and buttons.

This is looking at the rear of the property.  The "white X" is the strip of grass where we pulled up some very deep bullets at depths ranging from 10" to over 12".  The "X" is also just about where Jeff pulled up his Mass. Volunteer Militia button.  I had found one a few years earlier in the small group of trees just south east of the "X".

The first full day we spent hunting on the extreme right of the property.  The area had received rain just before we got there and again the night before.  The ground was very saturated and at times we would dig in the puddles to retrieve the bullets.  I don't remember the exact number of bullets we dug that day, but we were both in the double digits.

On Saturday we concentrated on the area of the "white X" in the picture above.  We knew there were deep bullets and we carefully covered the area over and over again.  I was using a White's XLT in the relic mode with some changes to the AC and DC sensitivity, PreAmp Gain, and turned off the Audio Disc.  I dug all targets over the indicated depth of 7.5 inches.  I am not positive of the ratio, but I would say I dug 4 or 5 "dry holes" before pulling up a bullet.  Jeff uses a Minelab Explorer II and was running one bar of discrimination.

Jeff with a freshly dug .58 caliber 3 ringer.

J.R. after retrieving a dropped 3 ringer.
Do not use the above techniques to retrieve targets in school yards, church yards,
parks, or public property.  Special permission was granted to use shovels to recover the
bullets at such deep depths.  Using a traditional knife, screwdriver, or trowel would not
have been practical.  All holes were filled back in to the complete satisfaction of the landowner.

On Sunday we hunted the flat area around the "white X" and the extreme right of the property.  In the late afternoon Jeff received a very loud signal indicating that it may be more than a bullet.  The extreme depth told him to check it out anyway.  In this one hole Jeff pulled up 5 .58 caliber 3 ringers!  Just earlier that morning we were joking about how nice it would be two find two bullets in one hole.

In three days of hunting we pulled up 109 bullets.

The Massachusetts Volunteer Militia button on the left was found by Jeff this trip. Years ago, I recovered an identical button (right) not far from where Jeff recovered his.  This was the best find of the trip.

Unidentified button found with civil war bullets.


It is always nice to see "white" when you dig this deep!  In this case, another 3 ringer.


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