User Panel
Posted: 4/25/2024 4:11:45 PM EDT
This may sound really simple, but I've messed around enough with earth moving to know it's not.
I have a 300yd stretch. We'll call one end point A and the other point B. B is 12 feet lower than A. A doesn't begin dropping until 200yds. Basically 2/3rds is level, the last 1/3rd drops off. What is the most efficient way of taking out that hump? Yes I'm planning on making a shooting lane. |
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Are you planning on making it a straight line between A and B, or are you trying to raise or lower one end to meet the other?
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Dozer and rotary lazer.
V out a flat bottom scale, and push to fill. Extra material generated is your back stop. |
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Very sure you're not in flood plane/wetland? If it is you're not supposed to modify it.
If not, as was said, dozer, laser, done. |
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Quoted: This may sound really simple, but I've messed around enough with earth moving to know it's not. I have a 300yd stretch. We'll call one end point A and the other point B. B is 12 feet lower than A. A doesn't begin dropping until 200yds. Basically 2/3rds is level, the last 1/3rd drops off. What is the most efficient way of taking out that hump? Yes I'm planning on making a shooting lane. View Quote Explosives. |
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Make a flat pad the grade you want. Remove the high spot when working from your pad.
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Can I rent all this shit and figure out how to use it?
I've rented skid loaders and mini excavators, that's it. |
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Are you willing to import fill, or does the grading have to balance with what you've got?
If the former, just import & fill in the low spot. If the latter, you're probably going to have a cut slope behind pt. A. As previous poster said, a good GPS/laser and a dozer is what you need. Or a friend who knows how to survey. |
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This is what's available
https://www.fishersrental.com/m/equipment.asp?action=category&category=19&key=LV02015999 |
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Simple, just push some dirt into the void.
It might be easier to buy a few dump trucks of fill though. |
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Cut and fill , Google gives plenty of info . Back in my pre PC school days it was graph paper and counting squares of cut and fill to balance .
This seems to be non technical problem and solved by a good dozer operator . |
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It would probably take much more dirt than you could imagine to build up the last part to level.
I don’t know as much as others in here but you’d need a transit level and bull dozer like they said. I’d try to push dirt from the top over to the last third. I was shocked at how much dirt will compress when you start compacting it. |
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Quoted: My brain is stuck on knocking down the hump. Maybe building up one end is better. View Quote Estimate how much of the low area can be filled with material from the hump. Cut and fill is the term for cutting the highs to fill the lows. I suggest evaluating your plan for drainage too. In other words don’t get too focused on cutting excessively because you need fill in the low spot and now you get a pond every time it rains. Make the final elevation what you want it to be if you need fill brought in or excess hauled away or sold. A good operator with a bulldozer is worth way more than the money saved by only renting a dozer to do the work yourself. An experienced operator can look at the land and make better recommendations. I am talking a guy that has been doing it for ten years not ten months. He would also make better recommendations on how to do it based on experience. Case in point my contractor building my garage estimated two to three ten wheelers of hard rock fill. My local heavy equipment operator that was a sub contractor looked at the site and said that’s at least 8-9 loads of rock. It was 11 and he was pounding it in with the bucket of the track hoe after driving over the previous packed in load a bunch of times with his loaded dump truck. 9 years later, no cracks from settling. Anyways the right guy can save you time and grief. |
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Quoted: It would probably take much more dirt than you could imagine to build up the last part to level. I don’t know as much as others in here but you’d need a transit level and bull dozer like they said. I’d try to push dirt from the top over to the last third. I was shocked at how much dirt will compress when you start compacting it. View Quote No kidding. I had 40 tandem loads brought in at my shop, after it was spread and compacted it didn't look like hardly anything had happened. |
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Attached File
You need to figure out how much material you need to move. And if you have enough available to do what you want. It sounds to me like you just need line of sight so you don't really need to fill that last 3rd. But I'm just guessing. Impossible to tell with certainty from the info given |
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Add material into the void.
With a MS Paint sketch and a profile you can do the math pretty quickly. |
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Quoted: It would probably take much more dirt than you could imagine to build up the last part to level. I don't know as much as others in here but you'd need a transit level and bull dozer like they said. I'd try to push dirt from the top over to the last third. I was shocked at how much dirt will compress when you start compacting it. View Quote |
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Quoted: 100 yards long x 20' wide at 12' deep with 90% compaction is 3550 yards or so. That's a lot of fill for a home owner. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: It would probably take much more dirt than you could imagine to build up the last part to level. I don't know as much as others in here but you'd need a transit level and bull dozer like they said. I'd try to push dirt from the top over to the last third. I was shocked at how much dirt will compress when you start compacting it. Where I'm at in MO, most contractors bid around 17 to 20 dollars a yard to haul in depending on if it's engineered fill and distance |
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Raise the shooting position. Make the range a little more interesting.
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Quoted: It would be cheaper and easier to raise your shooting platform or your targets, depending on the direction of fire and backstop https://www.circlethuntingranch.com/wp-content/gallery/long-range-shooting/IMG_6304.jpg View Quote I think you're on to something. OP, as steelonsteel said, if you decide to move dirt you're better off hiring it done. Even though you'll be working in a slot, a job like that would go better with a big machine with a U-blade. |
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View Quote This is the easy button, you can go old school with a sight and transit, or eyeball it, but the thought process is all the same, you pull from the high and fill in the low. Then you kind of blend it all together in a consistent slope. |
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Need to do a rough centerline profile of scaled distance /elevations to see where you are at , lay it out on graph paper . Old school but it's a start .
Basic surveying running a level circuit w/ instrument moves at 900 feet . You then choose where your cut begins . |
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Quoted: Estimate how much of the low area can be filled with material from the hump. Cut and fill is the term for cutting the highs to fill the lows. I suggest evaluating your plan for drainage too. In other words don’t get too focused on cutting excessively because you need fill in the low spot and now you get a pond every time it rains. Make the final elevation what you want it to be if you need fill brought in or excess hauled away or sold. A good operator with a bulldozer is worth way more than the money saved by only renting a dozer to do the work yourself. An experienced operator can look at the land and make better recommendations. I am talking a guy that has been doing it for ten years not ten months. He would also make better recommendations on how to do it based on experience. Case in point my contractor building my garage estimated two to three ten wheelers of hard rock fill. My local heavy equipment operator that was a sub contractor looked at the site and said that’s at least 8-9 loads of rock. It was 11 and he was pounding it in with the bucket of the track hoe after driving over the previous packed in load a bunch of times with his loaded dump truck. 9 years later, no cracks from settling. Anyways the right guy can save you time and grief. View Quote I have a similar problem in my backyard, on a smaller scale. I've tried moving dirt to level enough with my tractor to know when it's time to deal with it I'm hiring it out. Pretty sure someone who knows what they're doing can probably do in a morning what would take me days to do, and it'll look better. |
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Quoted: 100 yards long x 20' wide at 12' deep with 90% compaction is 3550 yards or so. That's a lot of fill for a home owner. View Quote I'd guess one half that amount. He said it's flat for the first 200 yds, then drops 12 ft out to 300 yds. It's not 12' for the full 100 yds. Still alot of fill. |
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Quoted: I have a similar problem in my backyard, on a smaller scale. I've tried moving dirt to level enough with my tractor to know when it's time to deal with it I'm hiring it out. Pretty sure someone who knows what they're doing can probably do in a morning what would take me days to do, and it'll look better. View Quote I hear ya. I have a compact tractor with a loader box blade and a rake. Just unF’n my 1/10th mile driveway on a hill takes me a few hours. That’s just pulling the winter plowed gravel back and putting the crown back. I was all set to do a big cut and fill in the driveway taking out a mid way hump.....until I found hard granite just under the surface in the hump. I’d need to drill and blast. I’d tried to find an edge to it. Never found it. Sometimes a plan becomes unworkable. I even considered drilling the rock and using that expanding chemical that cracks rock. That stuff isn’t cheap either. I could drill holes and wait for water, old man winter and time to crack it. Edit, it takes years sometimes just doing little stuff to put a little clean up fill where you want it. The trouble is I got too many holes for stones I pull out of the lawn after winter and other. Pull rocks from garden every year, lay on fill slope from garage. |
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Quoted: It would be cheaper and easier to raise your shooting platform or your targets, depending on the direction of fire and backstop https://www.circlethuntingranch.com/wp-content/gallery/long-range-shooting/IMG_6304.jpg View Quote 100% this |
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Quoted: Estimate how much of the low area can be filled with material from the hump. Cut and fill is the term for cutting the highs to fill the lows. I suggest evaluating your plan for drainage too. In other words don’t get too focused on cutting excessively because you need fill in the low spot and now you get a pond every time it rains. Make the final elevation what you want it to be if you need fill brought in or excess hauled away or sold. A good operator with a bulldozer is worth way more than the money saved by only renting a dozer to do the work yourself. An experienced operator can look at the land and make better recommendations. I am talking a guy that has been doing it for ten years not ten months. He would also make better recommendations on how to do it based on experience. Case in point my contractor building my garage estimated two to three ten wheelers of hard rock fill. My local heavy equipment operator that was a sub contractor looked at the site and said that’s at least 8-9 loads of rock. It was 11 and he was pounding it in with the bucket of the track hoe after driving over the previous packed in load a bunch of times with his loaded dump truck. 9 years later, no cracks from settling. Anyways the right guy can save you time and grief. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: My brain is stuck on knocking down the hump. Maybe building up one end is better. Estimate how much of the low area can be filled with material from the hump. Cut and fill is the term for cutting the highs to fill the lows. I suggest evaluating your plan for drainage too. In other words don’t get too focused on cutting excessively because you need fill in the low spot and now you get a pond every time it rains. Make the final elevation what you want it to be if you need fill brought in or excess hauled away or sold. A good operator with a bulldozer is worth way more than the money saved by only renting a dozer to do the work yourself. An experienced operator can look at the land and make better recommendations. I am talking a guy that has been doing it for ten years not ten months. He would also make better recommendations on how to do it based on experience. Case in point my contractor building my garage estimated two to three ten wheelers of hard rock fill. My local heavy equipment operator that was a sub contractor looked at the site and said that’s at least 8-9 loads of rock. It was 11 and he was pounding it in with the bucket of the track hoe after driving over the previous packed in load a bunch of times with his loaded dump truck. 9 years later, no cracks from settling. Anyways the right guy can save you time and grief. Drainage is a complete zero issue. The entire field slopes into a very deep ravine. |
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Spaceballs (7/11) Movie CLIP - Combing the Desert (1987) HD |
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If you don’t have rocky soil, a pan.
If you have rocky or hard clay, a dozer. Dozer will be slower. A pan / scraper will move more dirt; faster. But more expensive to run. But less time needed to move. A dozer will be cheaper up front, but a lot more time and fuel needed. Dozers are ideal in the more 50-100 yard range. You could probably DIY, but it would cost you more than having a pro come in and do it, as you’d need a dozer to be hauled in. Unless you have a tractor / trailer with a 35-50 ton detach. You’re looking at a D6 size dozer at least. I doubt someone will come in larger as they’d have to assemble a D8. But a D6 maybe a D7 can come in and flatten it out. If it’s real soft, someone might bring a pan and a dozer in and knock it out in a day or two. A dozer depending on the exact lay out might be more. Either way you’re looking at thousands in equipment and fuel. A shooting stand will be cheaper to build. Especially if you can DIY it. |
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View Quote This. Watching site crews get everything about perfect was awesome. |
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Best way would be to bring in fill dirt, but that'll be a lot of dirt.
In the alternative, I'd push dirt from the first 200 yards towards the last 100 yards and make it gentle decline 12' over 300 yards vs 12 over 100 yards. Yes, you can run a bulldozer yourself. It takes some time to get proficient, but you're not building anything critical over it, just have fun. |
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Build a 12 ft. high target stand at the 300 yard point at the B end.
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Build your doomsday bunker where the low spot is and you won't need a much full to cover it.
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Quoted: It would be cheaper and easier to raise your shooting platform or your targets, depending on the direction of fire and backstop https://www.circlethuntingranch.com/wp-content/gallery/long-range-shooting/IMG_6304.jpg View Quote This would be my 1st and 2nd choice |
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