#57 stone vs. crusher run: what to order, what it's called where you live, and how much you need

Walk into a stone yard and ask for #57, and depending on where you live you will get exactly what you wanted, a blank look, or something close but not quite. The number is a national sizing standard, but the people selling the stone do not always use it. In Buffalo, NY most yards do not use it at all.

That matters, because the two stones people most often confuse do opposite jobs. Get them backward and you end up with a French drain that clogs or a driveway that never firms up.

What the numbers actually mean

The #57 name comes from the standard sizing tables for crushed stone used by highway departments and concrete plants (ASTM D448, AASHTO M43). Each size number is a band of stone sizes, and #57 is the combination of #5 and #7. To pass as #57, nearly all of it has to go through a 1-inch screen, and almost none of it can fit through a #8 sieve, about 3/32 inch. Because the fines are washed out, there are open spaces between the pieces, and that is the whole point.

Crusher run is the opposite. It is crushed stone straight off the crusher with the dust left in, usually with a 1-inch or 2-inch top size. The dust fills the gaps between the bigger pieces, so when you wet it and compact it, it locks together into something close to a hard surface. You will also see it called dense-graded aggregate (DGA), quarry process (QP) or road base.

Two close relatives are worth knowing. #67 is a slightly smaller clean stone, 3/4 inch down. Pea gravel is small, rounded river stone. It looks nice, but because it is round it rolls under your feet and never locks together, so it is a poor choice for anything you drive on.

Which one goes where

The rule of thumb that covers most of it: if water needs to get through, use #57. If you need to stand, drive or build on it, use crusher run.

I have used crusher run under pavers myself, and I have seen what happens without it. My friend used just a thin layer of sand as his base. When he finished, it looked great. After two years of weather the walkway was unwalkable: the sand had washed out underneath and left the blocks uneven. We dug the old pavers up, dug an extra 4 inches deeper, put in crusher run and rented a plate compactor to compact it fully. We set the pavers on a 1/2-inch layer of leveled paver sand and swept sand into the joints. Ten years later it still looks perfect. Maybe his method would have worked somewhere else (probably not), but in Buffalo, NY, with our freeze and thaw cycles, a good foundation is a requirement for any project.

What Buffalo yards call it

Western New York sells stone by New York’s own numbers: #1A, #1, #2, #3 and #4, from small to large. Those come from the state highway department’s sizing, not the national #57 system. The catch is that the yards do not agree on what a #1 is. Here is what each one lists on its own site:

So one yard’s #1 is half an inch and another’s is an inch. #57 runs from 1 inch down to about 3/16 inch, which straddles the local #1 and #2. In practice, the closest thing to #57 in Buffalo is a clean #1 or #2 crushed stone around 3/4 to 1 inch, and some yards sell a #1-and-#2 blend that is closer still.

The way around all of this: ask by size and by the word “clean” or “washed”, not by number. “Clean crushed stone, about 3/4 inch, no fines” gets you #57 at any yard in the country. For crusher run, say the top size you want, 1 inch for a driveway surface or 2 inch for a heavier base.

What it’s called in other places

The same two materials go by different names across the US and around the world. These are the nearest local equivalents. Specs differ slightly from place to place, so treat this as a translation and confirm the size with the yard.

Europe and the UK use a simple code on the bag or ticket: two numbers in millimeters, smallest and largest. “4/20” is clean stone from 4 to 20 mm, very close to #57. Anything starting with a zero, like “0/32”, includes the dust down to nothing, which makes it crusher run.

How much to order

Stone is sold by the cubic yard or by the ton (or by the cubic meter and the metric ton), so you need both numbers. Start with volume:

Cubic yards = square feet × depth in inches ÷ 324

Then convert to weight. Published figures for #57 run about 1.25 to 1.4 tons per cubic yard, depending on the rock. Loose crusher run is about 1.5 tons per cubic yard, and it gets heavier as it is compacted, to roughly 1.75 to 1.9 tons per cubic yard. In metric, that is about 1.5 to 1.7 metric tons per cubic meter for #57 and about 1.8 for loose crusher run. Ask your yard for their number; limestone, granite and gravel each weigh a little different.

Because crusher run packs down, you need more loose stone than the finished depth suggests. Going from 1.5 tons per yard loose to 1.75–1.9 compacted means it shrinks by roughly a fifth to a quarter, so order about 25% more than the finished volume. Clean #57 barely compacts; 5% extra covers it.

Depths that come up most often: 4 to 6 inches of compacted base under a paver patio or walkway and 6 to 8 inches under a paver driveway (concrete paver industry guidance); 4 to 6 inches of clean stone for a shed pad, extended 18 inches to 2 feet past the shed; and about 3 inches of stone under and over the pipe in a French drain. Lay crusher run in layers of about 2 inches and compact each one with a vibratory roller, a plate compactor or, for small DIY jobs, a hand tamper. Never dump it all at once and compact it once: it will not compact all the way through, and it will settle later.

Mistakes worth avoiding

• Using crusher run in a drain. It works for a season, then the fines wash down and seal the small holes in the drain tile.
• Using #57 as the only driveway layer. It drains well but rolls and ruts under tires. Cap it with crusher run.
• Ordering by number in a new area. A #2 in one yard can be twice the size of a #2 in another. Ask for the size.
• Forgetting compaction. Crusher run that is not compacted in layers is just loose gravel with dust in it.
• Underordering crusher run. Order on the loose volume, not the finished depth.

How the calculator does the math

Both stones are in the estimator under Volume: Stone — #57 washed and Stone — crusher run. Trace the driveway, pad or trench on the aerial view, set the depth, and it works through the same steps as this page:

• Finished volume: square feet × depth in inches ÷ 324.
• Order loose: the finished volume plus a settling allowance. #57 gets 5%, because clean stone barely compacts. Crusher run gets 25% for compaction, and the results say so.
• Weight: the loose volume times 1.40 tons per cubic yard for #57 or 1.50 for crusher run.

It adds nothing else for waste, and it treats each trace as one layer. For a driveway with #57 under crusher run, run the same trace twice, once for each stone at its own depth. A delivery ticket is in tons and a yard quote is often in yards, so having both numbers is how you check one against the other. If your yard gives you a different weight per yard, trust theirs.

Sources: #57, #67 and #5 gradations from the Maryland Department of the Environment stormwater materials spec (citing AASHTO M43) and NCDOT Table 1005-1 · #57 as a combination of #5 and #7 from Chaney Enterprises · crusher run as dense-graded aggregate from Silvi · weights from Dirt Connections, Riverbend Rock & Mulch and Komplet America (supplier figures, not a standard) · paver base depths from ICPI Tech Spec 10 via CMHA · shed pad from Sheds Unlimited · French drain from The Home Depot · retaining wall drainage from Allan Block · Buffalo yard product names from each yard’s own website, October 2026 · regional and international names from Penn State Center for Dirt and Gravel Roads, Battletown Materials, Gravel Shop, Ozinga, Fox Landscape Supply, Shoreline Aggregate, Central Crushed, Harbor Soils, Steed and Evans, Peterborough Landscape Supply, Direct Landscape Supply, Tarmac, Day Aggregates, Carrickamore Quarries, Dapto Sands, Auckland Aggregates, Sandman, Agg-Net, Mineral Products Association

Educational use. Sizes, names and weights vary by quarry and region. Confirm the size and weight with your supplier before you order, and follow a local engineer or code where one applies.