Cheapest sandbag (Empty) I have seen.

David G. Smith

David G. Smith

Steak Knife Member
I have been needing to get some more sandbags/shotbags for my kit and have been looking around for the best options. I ran across some for sell on eBay that look pretty promising, and are the lowest priced I have seen so far. I just thought I would share. I went ahead and bought some. They are empty, so you can fill them up with what ever you want, which seems to be the best way to buy them if you need them shipped. Below is the link to the site on eBay. I bought one lot of 8, and another lot of 4, as I just need the 12 for my current kit. With that, the cost per bag came out to $5.75 a piece. I had priced having them made for me (My roommate is a costume designer and seamstress, so she calculated just costs) and this price is cheaper than that.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/8-PHOTO-STUDIO-20lbs-SAND-BAGS-LIGHT-STANDS-U-S-A-color-Navy-Blue-/150682420391?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23155f44a7

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-PHOTO-STUDIO-20lbs-SAND-BAGS-LIGHT-STANDS-U-S-A-color-Royal-Blue-/160670680988?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2568b8079c

Those listings close soon, but here is the link to the sellers page.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/bagsaver/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686
 
Ok, I went ahead and bought 8 more. At that price, I couldn't pass them up. Sandbags are just one of those items that are so necessary, but that a lot of folks just don't realize can set you back a little bit of change. As a guerrilla guy, I am very pleased to have found these bags at this price.
 
Eyetography said:
There are some even cheaper on Amazon, here is a link:

http://www.amazon.com/PBL-SANDBAG-H...ALEC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320637023&sr=8-1

Under $5 a piece shipped if you have Prime, which you can get free trials of.
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i use these and the ones that appear to be the same by Cowboy Studio, Fancier, etc. usually about $5 each bag.

I fill them up to about 15lbs each and they work perfectly so far, no leakage and easy to work with. I have about 10 right now but may need to order a few more soon.
 
Seo said:
Any word on their durability and any leakage? Looking to pickup 4 to try them out.
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I haven't had time to fill them yet, but I am pleased with the construction. They are double zippered and have that synthetic rubberized interior. The stitching seems pretty good. When I fill them I am going to use double heavy duty zip lock bags, and duct tape those closed. I don't think that leakage would be much of a problem with the bags, as they really do seem to be put together pretty well, but I really hate that and don't want to take the chance. I have seen the Cowboy Studio ones before, but they weren't that inexpensive, that I remember, and did not have free shipping. I have gotten stuff from Cowboy Studios before and they are good to work with also.
 
Thanks for the update, for that price, it is hard to go wrong even if they melt after a season or two. I have some of the BH impact bags, any idea how they compare.

On a slightly related topic; the filling. I have been using washed 3/8" pea gravel from my local quarry. It is clean, fairly dustless, cheap, and smooth enough to not chafe the bag interiors. No big cost if you want to ditch it for travel. You can probably buy bags of it at Home Depot as well. Does anyone have a better suggestion?

Grant
 
Re the filling. Not far from us is a 200? yr old cemetery .. hasn't been a burial there since before WW1. I noticed the very ancient unreadable tomb stones are surrounded with this sort of pre-graded gravel, a handfull of which proved to be extremely heavy.

After weighing up our options, I decided small amounts from a number of sites would, not only be not missed, but tidy up the place while contributing greatly to the stability of our C stands.

But as the place is visited on an irregular basis by many folk, I decided to go and gather my gravel after dark. This proved to be difficult, I needed a torch and in the pitch black and on the first visit, I suddenly saw another light. As it moved towards me, totally un-nerved I ran off leaving 3 of my empty bags behind.

This was either another person collecting gravel or some ghosts .. either way I don't want to know.

Cheers.
 
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I've had a few of these eventually work open, enough for sand to leak out. When you fill them, grab a handful of the ubiquitous plastic shopping sacks. Fill a sack, close it, tape it closed with packing tpae. Do two or so layers like that, then stuff the plastic sacks in. They won't really move inside the weight bag so the tape will stay fine.

Bonus: if you ever get them really wet, the sand will stay dry.
 
I thought I would give an update on these sandbags.

First, it looks like the folks that made mine are no longer selling them on eBay, but there are tons of others on there.

When I first filled the bags, I used regular Home Depot fill sand used for construction and landscaping. Well, I live in Michigan, and store the bags in an unheated garage. It seems that the moisture content of the fill sand is too high and in the winter the bags froze solid. I can't have that living here, so i got rid of the fill sand and went back to Home Depot and got several bags of Quickrette Play Sand. It is designed for use in sand boxes for kids and is pre-dried. Taking Michael's advice, for each side of the sandbags I put the sand inside of a gallon sized double zip lock plastic freezer storage bags (Available at any large grocery store). I sealed the first bag and then put another storage bag over it and sealed it. I also weighed each bag after I filled it an wrote the weight on each side of the bag with a Sharpie. I just wanted to make sure that I knew the weight of each bag just in case I got into situations where making sure that a load used is even was needed.

After using these bags over a year I have to say that I am very pleased. I have not had any issues with sand leakage. Shooting like I do, very low budget, these sand bags have been invaluable. I am very glad I took the time and effort to put together a kit of them, and recommend it to anyone shooting low budget films.
 
I fill sand bags with 45 cal copper coated lead bullets. It's the only thing you can put in a sand bag which will go up in value over time.
 
Isn't it better to fill a plastic bag with gravel and then put that into the sandbag? Sand can absorb moisture, or it can leak and get into things. Gravel can be pretty heavy and is not likely to leak or gather moisture - you can also get those cheap marbles and the like... heavy and handy as filler. You're not limited to sand, you know.
 
OldCorpse said:
Isn't it better to fill a plastic bag with gravel and then put that into the sandbag? Sand can absorb moisture, or it can leak and get into things. Gravel can be pretty heavy and is not likely to leak or gather moisture - you can also get those cheap marbles and the like... heavy and handy as filler. You're not limited to sand, you know.
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I don't know. Maybe... Sand has worked out fine for me though.
 
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