I know waxed dirt is the king but anyone use that bagged coal shale from no bs? Can you post a picture of it?

If it works well wouldn't any crushed stone work? Chicken grit, paver base anything crushed pretty fine

Don't use crushed limestone, it'll turn to concrete.

Not every rock works, ohio coal shale will freeze.

Not all coal slack is good. The good stuff will shed water like a duck.
Also, it's easy to bed trapps in and it packs and settles heard making it seal out the moisture. Also making the trap more solid in the bed. It's nasty to work with. You will end up with black boogers.
Used to put up 4 to 5 hundred gallons every couple of years.

I got a spot on a side of a hill that is coal and has large area of coal that is ground as fine as river sand. That stuff is excellent bedding product. I don't do much trap setting in freezing temps anymore. I can go there today with this -18 degree morning and gather the coal sand with my hands. Nevah freezes it seems.

Didn’t have very good luck with it here. Bought some from local power plant years ago and it froze up like most materials I tried. Freeze thaw and frost here in late season is tough. Waxed dirt works best for me.
Jim

Several guys that were at Coyote Days use it and swear by it. We're trying to find a good source.
They use it as trap bedding I believe.

Used to fill an old pickup box made into a trailer with coal shale from different spots down between Medicine Bow and Hanna it was as good as some of the stuff that would come out of the Powder River Basin

Those coal vane spots of mine is very fine and the turkey and pheasants love it for dusting in the spring/summah.

My understanding is that the powder river coal is mostly subbituminous coal and iowa does have some of those deposits as well

Sorry I wasn’t very clear I guess all the shale I’ve used has come from Wyoming I will probably load up with some more when I go out for Coyote Days again also I never wanted to use the shale from around the power plants or after it was loaded on the rail cars because I was told it was treated with something to help control the dust

The trap bed stuff probably isnt gonna be the stuff they use in the plants if they can help it. The trap bed type is a lower grade coal that doesnt produce as much energy. Good way to tell if its the trap bed type is if its dull. Shiny coal is not good for it.

Coal shale they talked about at Coyote Days comes from beside the highway at coal seems, the stuff that sloughs off at road cuts.

The coal seams are exposed all along highway 30 in Carbon County but I wouldn’t like getting it there without permission from Wydot I just got it along the 2 tracks where the ranchers had made cuts to cross draws with all the checker boarded land along the railroad it was easy find it on private land

When I used it, way back when, I always applied the 50-50 coyote urine, glycerin mix.

It being dull do you mean bituminous coal, that would be soft and from the west, anthracite from the east is shiny and hard, here is a form of bituminous and quite a bit of the state has it underneath it.

Think the biggest reserve of Anthracite is up around Scranton PA, and a smaller reserve somewhere in Colorado.

I ran a coal boiler for 30 yrs, and Anthracite is high grade fuel...We mostly ran bituminous with it's lower btu, and high sulphur content. (cheaper).

Anthracite
Bituminous
Lignite
Peat


That descending order represents the carboneferous stages & quality of coal if my memory is correct.