soil cement

[rjacobs]

Anybody on here ever messed with doing soil cement?

The premise I guess is you take quickrete and you till it into your soil while you are wetting it down, then you roll it. Its supposed to harden pretty damn hard(not as hard as straight concrete) and still look like dirt.

We are building a shooting pit on some land and are going to end up with a roughly 150x200 pit that we are trying to figure out what to do with the ground cover. The quote we got for a 4" thick layer of 1" minus rock delivered was like $3500+ which is way more than we want to spend. We have also looked at seeding the ground real heavily with a hearty grass that does well in full sun like Kentucky Blue Grass, Zoysia, or Bermuda which I think would be the cheapest option, but require the most up keep(there is a triple blade pull behind mower deck at the property that can be used for mowing with a 4 wheeler).

Any other suggestions for things that arent all that expensive to use as ground cover on a shooting range?

 

[CMH]

I am guessing to get enough concrete mixed in to provide any real stabilization you will end up over your $3500 estimate for rock. You have the better part of an acre to cover - any kind of hard surface is going to cost you something. At $3,500 you are just over $0.10 a square foot. To get under than I think you are going to have to seed. Even with seeding if you are trying to get good dense cover you are going to have to spend some coin. When you start talking those sizes, unfortunately solutions don't come cheaply.

 

[rjacobs]

The estimate to do the soil/quickrete mix is like 800 bucks which isn't bad. It's basically 100lbs per 144 square feet and we have about 30k sq. Ft to cover. About 210 bags at 3 bucks a bag plus a tiller rental.

I think though we're going to just seed grass and be done with it. My friend knows somebody that does hydro seed and he will spray it all for cheap this fall and then come back in the spring and touch it up if needed. About a grand to get it done and I think grass will be nicer.

 

[Rookie]

Finding spent brass in the grass is tough unless mowed real short. So you loose the brass until you hit it with the mower and then it becomes a missile.

 

[SledDog]

I was just going to mention that finding stuff in the grass is a lot harder. Which means it gets mowed.

 

[rjacobs]

There is a company that makes a thing that picks up brass from the grass do covered there. You just push it along and it picks it up. Cost about 500 bucks.

The guy we chatted with about hydroseed said about 4-5c per square foot and said he could spray whatever we wanted this fall. He said it would depend on what we wanted for when he would spray. We want something like Bermuda or zoysia to stand up to the foot traffic and he said no problem spraying in the fall.

Thanks mtncreek for all the info. Good stuff.

What's your opinion of the hydro seed vs just spreading seed itself in late fall so it stays dormant until the spring? Realistically need the surface ready by late April as I'm hosting a pistol class.

 

[mtrmn]

I have rocks (1" and less) around my shop and it's pretty hard to spot brass on those too, but at least they don't bury up.

 

[rjacobs]

We have mostly clay soil in Missouri too but we haven't broke ground yet so in waiting to see what exactly we end up with. My buddy is going to strip and separate the top soil and says he can respread it as the final grade and then we can seed.

Thanks for all the insight.

 

[163dm]

Totally agree with all of the advice so far. My only experience with soil cement is for public roadways and their required loads, which is probably quite a bit beefier than may be required for you purposes. For the soil cement 100lbs per 144 sq. ft. assuming a tillage/mixing depth of 4" would put us at 2% ratio.....well under the 5% percent recommended above by MtnCreek. 2% may be adequate for foot traffic on the range but will quickly break down in vehicle areas. We have typically used between 5% and 7% for full depth reclamation of roadway, which is, basicly spreading the required cement on the roadway then grinding, pulverizing, and mixing the existing asphalt, basestone, and subgrade with the cement and adding water at the same time. If you decide to do soil cement remember the more clay you have in your soil, the more cement you will need to acheive strength vs. a soil that has more sand, or stone in it. Without knowing more of exact conditions I would guess the soil-cement would be very costly.

I would think that Dense Graded Aggregate -DGA ( or whatever its called in your area) would be the way to go. You could also stage the project by planting grass on part and placing DGA on some areas and buying more DGA each year as funds and needs require.

Drainage! Drainage! Drainage!
It sounds like you guys are putting some good planning into this. If you haven't considered drainage, I highly recommend it. Soil-cement base, DGA, or even grass is not going to last very long if it gets used hard while it is partially wet or ponded with water.

 

[rjacobs]

There currently is a very small drainage ditch that runs through the middle of the valley that we are using. The plan is to widen and straighten the small ditch, fill with rip rap and cover with 1" minus to allow the water to drain. My buddy was also going to price out a French drain but with 200+ ft and the little water that is generally in there he thought rip rap would be cheaper. We will grade to allow water to flow down into the creek to be carried away. In the berm that we will be building we are going to get a couple 2' diameter sections of concrete culvert pipe to allow the water to flow through there and continue on with the natural creek.