Typical truck/transfer (truck with trailer) is ten yards in the truck and another ten yards in the transfer trailer. Around here the price for twenty yards (one trip) is around $525 for road base. For your purposes, I would see if they carry road base. Standard gravel squishes out to the sides of the road whereas road base has fines mixed in with the larger rocks and creates a well-packed surface after it gets watered down.
This is the right answer, having been a "rock bucket" owner for long enough to put in my driveway and do a few other things. "Finds" are defined as parts, in the rock industry and also manufacturing. Used to be called a parts list with part numbers.....now it's Find list with Find numbers. In getting crushed rock of the right kind for a driveway, you have hard rocks that didn't get crushed all the way down to the powder which when watered and packed as troutsqueezer said makes for a good, hard bed that will retain it's shape and the hard rocks will support the load.
If you get something like crushed granite or river rock it will move around on you without something to hold it. One option with that is to lay down a bed of soft rock and get it good and packed and then come back with either of these or something similar for a good road after the rock has had time to get packed in the base. I did this for my drive as I wanted a brown driveway and the brown rock comes from the Red River and is river pebbles. Around here are quarries of a soft white caliche' that is your bed rock.
Obviously different rocks cost different amounts so look around and ask questions. Be careful about buying "washed" materials. Adds a lot to the cost and depending on your use, you may want the cheaper dirty material. Case in point is washed sand which is used for making concrete. Unwashed sand is a lot cheaper and is what you use for yard work and such. I can get my river rock unwashed and that gives me some river dirt/clay/sand (finds) to help in holding it in place. First time it rains on it it will wash the top of the rock for you making it look pretty.
Again you can get it by the load or the ton. The pit loads by the ton. The driver wants to sell by the load. By the ton you get what you pay for. By the load you get what the driver wants you to have for the price.....now how do you suppose I know that?
If you buy by the ton, tell the driver/supplier that you want x tons of y rock from z pit. Ask him for his hauling fee. Now you have your cost per ton. A cubic yard is approximately 3600# (as I recall....varies depending on what it is) so that will get you in the ball park cost for the material part for so much volume of whatever you choose for rock.
You can find the local pits easily by following a rock truck to the pit, if somebody doesn't know or they are not listed where you can find them....yellow pages, weekly neighborhood rag sheet, etc. If you visit there you can find out what they have and what they want for it.....the hauler will get a tonnage load ticket and you know the price per ton so that plus his fee for delivery is your price. If you don't want to go to all that trouble it could be several hundred bucks out of your pocket that you wouldn't have had to spend had you done your home work for a given amount of a given rock. Don't forget to factor in the spreading of that rock, however you choose to manage that.
Here we too have 10 yd/10 yd if using a bobtail 10 wheel tandem axle dump (usually built with a 14 yard dump bucket) and a 10 yard tandem axle "pup" (the little trailer they pull behind). These rigs are best for getting in small places with a good sized load.
Otherwise are belly dumps for making roads (but the other types of buckets make roads too, just don't lay material down in a strip quite like a belly dump), and end dumps where the trailer carries all the material and may be 40' long, carrying 25 tons legally.
Truck-pups and end dumps can chain the tail gate whereby only a certain amount of material will come out at a time and by them driving down your driveway as they raise the trailer/bed you can get a reall good spreading. If the guy knows his business a chained gate does a better job of spreading than a belly dump.....makes smoothing it out a walk in the park.
Just remember that it costs the operator basically the same regardless of the tonnage....slight wear and moderate fuel differences only. So get the biggest truck that you can get in your place for the best price.
Also, if you don't know the driver or have references, ask to see the load ticket from the pit before you pay. It has the tonnage that the quarry put on the truck. If the driver refuses, go elsewhere.
Want more, ask,
Mark
