About This Site
Most detecting advice stops at the machine. The real finds start with the ground.
Plenty of people buy a good detector, learn the settings, and still go months without finding anything worth digging. That’s rarely a machine problem. It’s a site-selection problem: nobody taught them how to figure out where old coins, relics, and lost jewelry actually end up, or which pieces of land they’re even allowed to search. Swing&Dig starts there.
What This Site Is
Swing&Dig is an independent metal detecting resource for US hobbyists, covering how detectors actually work, how to choose one for your specific goal, field technique that improves what you dig up, and how to legally find places worth searching in the first place.
The scope stays narrow on purpose. This isn’t a brand-versus-brand review site, and you won’t find a generic “top 10 places to metal detect” list here, the kind that gets shared without anyone checking if the land is public, private, or restricted. Good detecting advice depends on real land research and real legal rules, not a listicle written for clicks.
How This Site Works
Most detecting content starts with the machine. This site starts with the ground: plat maps, old deed records, and historical aerial photos that point to where people actually lived, worked, and dropped things.
A detector’s advertised depth means nothing without knowing the target size, soil mineralization, and discrimination setting it was tested under. This site states those conditions instead of repeating a marketing number.
Thirty years of reading property lines and land records translates directly into finding legitimate, legal places to search, and explaining exactly how to ask for permission the right way.
Federal land rules like ARPA get misquoted constantly. This site explains what’s actually restricted, what isn’t, and where the real gray areas sit, instead of scaring readers away from land they’re legally allowed to search.
Why Swing&Dig Exists
I spent years surveying land for a living before I ever owned a detector, and when I finally picked one up, I noticed something: most people in this hobby buy their machine first and figure out where to use it second. They end up swinging over parks that have been hunted a thousand times, or beaches that never had much traffic to begin with, then wonder why they’re only finding pull tabs.
The land itself holds most of the answer. Old plat maps show where a homestead used to sit. County deed records show who owned a parcel a hundred years ago and what it was used for. That information is public, it’s free, and almost nobody in this hobby uses it. Swing&Dig exists to change that, one search at a time.
Who Is Behind It
Swing&Dig is written by Scott Duncan, a retired county land surveyor. For thirty years, his job was reading plat maps, deed histories, and topo sheets to figure out exactly where a property line sat and what used to stand on a parcel decades earlier. When he retired and took up metal detecting, he realized he already had the hardest skill in the hobby figured out: knowing where to look.
Scott started this site because most metal detecting content treats location research as an afterthought, when it’s actually the difference between a productive hunt and an empty one. He’s direct about what a detector can and can’t do, and he doesn’t pretend a bigger machine fixes a bad choice of ground. You can read more on the author page.
How Advice Is Checked
Guidance here comes from manufacturer specifications, BLM, NPS, and USFS documentation on federal land access, and direct field observation, cross-checked against what real detectorists are discussing on r/metaldetecting, TreasureNet, and detectorprospector.com. Those forums matter because they show what actually happens in the field, not just what a product page promises.
That doesn’t mean a forum post becomes fact on its own. Depth and detection claims still get checked against manufacturer specs and real test conditions. Legal claims about federal, state, or private land access get checked against the actual regulation, not a secondhand summary someone posted years ago.
With Gratitude
Some of the most useful detecting knowledge doesn’t come from a manual. It shows up in a TreasureNet post where someone admits they hunted the wrong field for two years before checking an old plat map, or a forum thread where a detectorist explains exactly how they asked a landowner for permission and got a yes instead of a door closed in their face.
Those stories matter because they’re the real obstacles nobody puts in a buying guide. Swing&Dig is better because people are willing to admit what didn’t work before they figured out what did.
To every detectorist who has posted “I wasted a season on this, here’s what I’d do differently” instead of staying quiet: someone else is going to find something because of it.
Get in Touch
Found something wrong, have a question about a detector or a land access rule, or noticed a spec that needs a second look? Send a note directly.