What is the difference between crushed stone and Natural Pea Gravel?

Crushed stone has angular faces from crushing, so it locks together and compacts into a base. Natural Pea Gravel is rounded, washed stone about 3/8 inch, and it stays loose. Use crushed stone under drives, pads and drainage beds; use Natural Pea Gravel on walkways, play areas and dog runs where a rounded surface is wanted.

Should I order material by the ton or by the yard?

Both work, and the choice comes down to how you want to compare the load. Each product page has a calculator so you can size the quantity before ordering. Order by the ton or by the yard, whichever suits the job, and the truck tips the load in one pile at your site.

Order Crushed Base Course in Toole County, MT

Q: Which stone is best for drainage in Toole County?

Washed rock is the clean drainage stone, with the fines washed out so water moves through it. It suits French drains, curtain drains, foundation drains and downspout runs. For a drainage bed or pipe bedding, 3/4 inch crushed rock also works, and it surfaces over a compacted base.

Montana Rock Supply handles gravel, stone and aggregate delivery in Toole County, MT. Start with the calculator on any product page to size the load, then order by the ton or by the yard.

Crushed base course, the 3/4 minus material Montana specs call for, is the base under most drives, shop pads and parking areas here. The ground it goes on is glacial till over shale, heavy and slow to drain.

Delivery across Toole County

You order online and pick a delivery date at checkout. A dump truck tips the load in one pile at your site.

That covers Shelby, Sunburst, Kevin, Sweet Grass, Ledger and Oilmont, along with the surrounding county ground.

Quantities are ordered by the ton or by the yard. Each product page has a calculator so you can size the load before you order.

Have the pile site clear and reachable by a truck, and the drop goes smoothly.

Materials delivered in Toole County

Base material in Montana is specified as crushed base course.

The MDT Standard Specifications for Road and Bridge Construction cover it under Section 701.02.4, naming grades by nominal top size: Grade 5A at 2 inch minus and Grade 6A at 1 1/2 inch minus, with a 3/4 inch minus grade, 7A, developed for MDT as pit sources for the larger sizes ran short.

City and county work is more often written against Section 02235, Crushed Base Course, of the Montana Public Works Standard Specifications. County road standards call sizes out the same way, as 3 inch minus sub-base and 1 inch minus crushed base or top course.

Crushed base course does the structural work. It is ordered by top size, usually as 3/4 minus, and it goes under driveways, shop pads, parking areas and shed bases.

Pit run is unprocessed pit gravel for deep fill, raising grade and sub-base under a crushed base course or a road mix surface. It is not crushed and it is not a finished driving surface.

Road mix surfaces a drive or a county-style lane, and Montana road mix carries enough fines and clay binder to pack hard under a roller. Washed rock goes into French drains, curtain drains, foundation drains and downspout runs, where washing the fines out is the whole point.

Crusher fines bed pavers and flagstone and surface packed pathways. Riprap armors stream banks, culvert outlets, coulees and ditches against spring runoff.

Screened topsoil covers lawns, grading and bed prep, and washed sand levels and beds flatwork and pavers.

Ground conditions across Toole County

Across the Hi-Line and the northern glaciated plains, the ground is glacial till over shale, a mix of clay, gravel, sand and silt left by the ice and by glacial lakes. Much of it is heavy and slow-draining, with coulee and river-bottom alluvium cut down through it.

Flat ground and heavy till drain slowly. Snowmelt ponds on subsoil that is still frozen, and a semi-arid year is broken by a few intense summer storms.

Plan a drainage layer where water sits.

Wind on bare ground, sheet and gully erosion in the coulees, and bank cutting all move soil. Riprap and a packed surface hold ground that would otherwise wash or blow.

The working season is short. Frost is in the ground from late autumn into spring, and compaction waits for it to come out.

Some of the coldest winters in the state bring deep frost, long cold spells, and chinook thaws that cycle the surface without taking the frost fully out until spring. Frost depth figures published across Montana run from about 36 to 60 inches, and the northern plains sit at the deep end of that.

The local building department sets footing depth.

Choosing the right material

Toole County sits in the Hi-Line and the northern glaciated plains, and Liberty County shares that same ground region. The till over shale, the slow drainage and the coulee alluvium are the same story, so the base and drainage choices carry over unchanged.

Glacier County and Pondera County sit on the Rocky Mountain Front, where gravelly glacial till and outwash grade into deep clay and silty prairie soils, with cobble alluvium on the creek bottoms coming out of the mountains. That ground runs gravelly and cobble-rich, so it drains differently from the heavy till here.

Where your ground holds water, washed rock in a drain and a compacted crushed base course over it do the work.

Order aggregate delivery in Toole County

Montana Rock Supply delivers bulk gravel, stone, sand and topsoil across Toole County, from Shelby and Sunburst to Kevin, Sweet Grass, Ledger and Oilmont. Size the load with the calculator, order by the ton or the yard, and pick your delivery date at checkout.

Place your order online and a truck brings it to your site.

Bulk Aggregate Delivery Across Toole County, MT