sandbags

All of my inexpensive Impact sandbags are filled with river pebble/stone that I bought from Home Depot - it's dirt cheap (~ $2-3) for a huge 50lb bag if I remember correctly. I wish it was a little denser/heavier, but honestly I've never had an issue with leaking or breaks, and I don't have to deal with finding things on locations (central IL is not known for sand or rocks being readily available haha). I looked into getting some shot since there is a distributor in town, but I just can't justify the price on it at this point.

Adam
 
RyanT said:
I would really just try and buy sandbags prefilled.
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An interesting idea. Turns out it's not that difficult. B&H as an Avenger 15lb sandbag with free shipping. And there's this place called The Sandbag Store that's offering free shipping on apparently everything they sell, which includes filled saddle sandbags for cinema use. I'll have to verify that to be sure it's true.

But first, anyone have a recommendation on a filled sandbag -- both sandbag maker, and sandbag seller?
 
Now the next dilemma is, saddle or butterfly handle? :cheesy:

I like Advantage Gripware's sandbags. They also seem like a good price but I have to say Sandbagstore.com is looking pretty good too.
 
Bruce Watson said:
Yet another dumb newbie question: what's the best thing to put in a sandbag? Yes, it did occur to me that sand might be the ticket. But yellow sand from the sandbox? Builder's sand for making mortar? Sand from the beach? Fine sand, coarse sand? How clean is clean?
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-Laniakea beach sand for me.

Bruce Watson said:
How about pebbles (Lowes has 'em in 25 / 50 lbs bags) -- any advantage? I can think of one perhaps, that if the sandbag leaks you don't get sand everywhere. But do sandbags leak?
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I've used rocks in fly-aways. In all these years i've had only one American Grip bag leak.

Bruce Watson said:
And I see there are special bags for shot -- why can't I put metal shot (stainless steel?) in a sandbag? Not strong enough? Make the bag too heavy?
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If you get quality bags they wont leak unless ruptured. I only use American grip and now Rag Place bags. You can put shot in a sandbag just use a smaller sized bag.

Bruce Watson said:
Can a sandbag be too heavy?
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35lbs is max for a bag that you want to last.

Bruce Watson said:
As you can guess, I've never played with a sandbag before, but I'm about to need to use some. So please give a sandbag newbie a clue.
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I'm now converting to shot bags myself. Being from an island in the middle of the Pacific this is kinda hard for 2 reasons. First I can walk across the street and get all the sand I need and second shipping charges are high to where I live. Shot bags have one distinct advantage and that is they are more compact. One minor advantage is if you have to use them in a pool shotbags wont make the water cloudy. In the past I have always relied on Amercian Grip fly-aways. There was a time when that's all you would see in Hawaii. The idea of shipping sand here is ridiculous. When shot bags started being used they were actually filled with steel shot sealed from the factory. This created a problem for us. We could no longer fill our own and they would rust really fast. I had a friend actually make shot to fill bags with to save on shipping. What they use now is stainless shot made from the inside punch of stainless washers. Like donut holes. They are then tumbled to smooth them so the edges dont abraid the fabric. This fixes the rust. The US Postal Service has fixed the shipping issue. 2x25lb shot bags will fit in a flat rate box. I bet I could probably mash a third in there but two fit comfortably. 70lbs is the cutoff for a flaterate. You could fill one with concrete and it wouldn't be that much. A full applebox filled with cement only weighs 60ish pounds. Yeah I've done it. I now get mine from TheRagPlace.com. They are terrific people and they were hip to the idea of flaterate boxing.
 
I bought my cinema saddle style bags from a local rental house about five years ago and they are still like new, never leak, freeze and are super stable. I only have four of them but that has been fine. My other bags are the fill yourself type such as the ones for my Manfrotto boom stands. I use aquarium gravel, its clean, not dusty and won't leak out. But I suppose pea gravel is the same and probably cheaper. I must admit Boa bags look like they will be in my kit soon.
 
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