Metal Detector Myth

I am amazed at most survival book writers ignorance when it comes to fooling a metal detector.  They all seem to be repeating each other and it seems it has not changed in years. It is very evident they are all wrong in my not so humble, ahem.

Over the last several days I have reviewed many new books by writers in the survival world all who are very knowledgeable with many skill sets, and this is not to take anything away from those skill sets. After seeing this same mistake over and over in these 4 books, I dove into my extensive collection of survival books and did a fast look for the problem. Each one said the same thing. They all advise scattering nails , BBs and junk metal over your cache in order to fool a metal detector or the operator. Even a novice who has read one book on metal detecting knows what to do in the case of a heavy metal “collection” concentrated in one place. For someone with lots of experience it does nothing but maybe pin point that something is under all that junk . First it is out of context for the area. Modern detectors can cancel out the surface junk and “look” down deeper and ignore the surface crap.

Even an old detector will work because any metal detector operator worth his salt will rake the surface and and scan it again, rake again and check it again. Also the ploy of putting a decoy cache on top of the real deal will not work… all operators always scan the hole again after a recovery.

I have been at the game of metal detectors and making finds for 50 years or more. I have found well hidden caches that had these “fooler” junk metals scattered around, all it did for me was ring my alarm that something is under there. The only place junk metals would work is in a true junk yard… That would be a nightmare.

I mean no disrespect to these fine writers with awesome survival credits and skill sets. For the most part they are right on . Not everyone can know everything. This happens to be an area of expertise that I know well. So in a way this is an open letter to those fine survivalists who offer us their hard won skills in their books.

With the utmost respect to those writers on survival.