Fur, Silver And A .44 Henry

Me and my friend Steve were able to get out and do a little bit of calling this past weekend. The calling wasn’t red hot, but we had too much fun anyway.

The day before we left, I got a new metal detector. So I had to bring it with and see if I would get a chance to try it out. Well, calling was pretty slow in the middle of the day so we decided to go look at some old ranch and mining camp sites in the area and see what we could dig up with the detector.

Old ranch site

First few hits were just old horseshoe nails. But about the fourth hole, was more interesting.

A silver dime, a .22 shell and a W.R.A. .250-3000 case.

All from the same hole, I pulled a .22 shell, an old W.R.A. .250-3000 case, and, a silver dime! We both thought that was pretty dang cool. So we headed over to another spot nearby I knew about where there had been a mining camp in the 1880s. Nothing left standing there now to give a clue there was ever really anything there. On the short drive over there, we talked about how cool it would be to find a really old big bore rimfire case.

Started pulling up lots more horseshoe nails and other rusty old iron – but it was interesting, being at least about 130 years old or more. Then, like the ground could read our minds, we dug up a spent (and smashed…) .56 Spencer rimfire case! We both commented about how cool it would be to find an unfired case that old. Well, our lucky day I guess, because only a few feet away, we found an unfired .44 Henry cartridge!

Unfired .44 Henry, spent/smashed .56 Spencer, bits of old iron

Come evening, we threw out our cots and got my new little cast iron grill fired up and grilled some inch thick ribeyes to medium rare perfection!

Camp for the night
Dinner main course

Next morning we headed out to do some calling. Had a little boo-boo to take care of not far out of camp though.

I hate it when that happens…

And we didn’t get skunked…

My first coyote of the year

Then it got warm and the coyotes stopped playing. And we had an itch to play with the new metal detector some more, so we motored a ways to another old mining camp, one that was in use for much longer, well into the 20th century.

Neat looking old miners cabin almost completely swallowed up in young growth aspen
Must have been a nice place back in the day. Hanta virus heaven now though.
1940 International Harvester dozer

There is an old dozer at the site. We got to looking at it and Steve noticed it had a distributor and spark plugs on one side, a normal diesel injection pump on the other. What the heck? Steve looked it up on the way home, it was started using gasoline until fully warmed up, then switched to diesel. Problematic. Known for heads cracking. I wonder why, lol!

We ran the detector around there for awhile. Tons of trash, old and new. Found a couple modernish coins and an interesting assortment of old buttons and rivets. An ancient copper Levi’s rivet. Flat brass button. “Can’t Bust ‘Em” button off of a pair of Lee overalls from the 1940’s. It was fun and interesting.

Come evening, yup, tossed out the cots and fired up the grill! Some dang tasty grub we have on these outings!

Camp
Steve waiting for dinner to be served
Dinner ready to be served!

Next morning, we made one (successful) stand and then headed for home.

Steve and coyote

And some of the detector finds laid out after getting home.

Some of the interesting junk – and not junk we found poking around

Can’t wait to go again!

  • DAA

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Fur, Silver And A .44 Henry
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Fur, Silver And A .44 Henry
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Coyote calling, metal detecting, camping trip report.
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Coyotestuff.com
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6 thoughts on “Fur, Silver And A .44 Henry”

  1. Looks like fun, except for the wrapping of the barbed wire.
    Is the date on the dime still visible ?
    Those are some serious looking steaks.
    Thanks for sharing your trip.

    1. Jody, the dime is a 1956. Not super old, but old enough to be silver. Unwrapping a tangle of barb wire isn’t my favorite way to greet the sunrise!

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