39 x 39 x 50 in bulk bag

Half an inch to spare

39 in on a 40 in pallet leaves 0.5 in per side, on the empty, sewn size. On a 48 x 40 in pallet it is 0.5 in across the 40 in width and 4.5 in at each 48 in end. Fill an open bag and its walls round out past those half inches, so it sits over the pallet edge. That matters for racking, stretch wrap and tines catching the fabric.

If the pallet is fixed at 40 x 40, a baffled 39 in bag or a 37 in bag gives more margin. If the bag size is fixed, a 48 x 48 in pallet takes it with 4.5 in per side.

Racking is the strictest test. A selective rack bay is built for a set load width, and a bag that bulges over its pallet can catch an upright or a beam as the forklift backs it in. Measure a filled bag at mid-height and at the base, and check both against the clear opening of the bay.

Golf course and turf suppliers, sports-field builders and mortar plants buy sand in bags this size, as do users of mineral filler and abrasive blasting media. Blast media such as garnet and crushed slag are dense and sharp, so fabric weight and coating deserve as much attention as the rating.

Where its numbers land

39 x 39 x 50 = 76,050 cubic inches, / 1,728 = 44.0 cubic feet. That round figure lines up with the rating table in a way few sizes do. At 50 lb per cubic foot, granulated sugar comes to 44 x 50 = 2,200 lb, the 1,000 kg class. At 100 lb, dry sand comes to 4,400 lb, the 2,000 kg class. Plastic pellets at 34 lb are 1,496 lb, just under 1,500 lb.

Landing on a rating at box volume is not the same as filling to the brim. A real bag holds less than its box, so sugar may reach the top a little before 2,200 lb. Either way the scale on the fill line decides, and the label caps it.

The tidy figures come from the width. 39 x 39 = 1,521 square inches of floor; multiply by 50 and divide by 1,728 and the total happens to be 44.01. Nothing about the bag was designed to hit the rating table. It simply does.

In between: seed corn at 45 lb is 1,980 lb, flour at 36 lb 1,584 lb, fertilizer at 60 lb 2,640 lb, cement at 90 lb 3,960 lb and gravel at 95 lb 4,180 lb.

Sixteen rows of two

In an assumed 53 ft van, 100 in of width takes two 39 in bags with 22 in left, and 630 / 39 = 16.15, so 16 rows: 32 floor spots. A one-ton fill hits the 44,000 lb payload at 22 bags. A 4,400 lb sand bag hits it at 44,000 / 4,400 = 10 bags, leaving 22 of the 32 positions empty. With loads that concentrated, the carrier places them for axle weights, and blocking or bracing should be agreed before loading.

Heavy, few-bag loads change the delivery too. A driver hauling ten 4,400 lb bags needs a dock or a forklift able to take each one, and a site with only a pallet jack or a small truck cannot unload the trailer. Tell us what the receiving end has; a flatbed unloaded from the side suits some yards better than a van.

A full 4,400 lb bag also asks more of the forklift. Check the truck's capacity plate at the load centre a 39 in bag puts on the forks, and keep the tines through all four loops.

Who orders 39 in bags

Users who need more than a 35 in bag holds without going taller than 50 in: a fill frame with a fixed hook height, a discharger with a fixed lift, or a warehouse with a height limit. Going from 35 to 39 in of width at the same 50 in height adds 8.6 cubic feet, from 35.4 to 44.0.

Send a line or two about your filler and discharger with the request, and we check the 39 in footprint against both before quoting. Spout diameters, frame openings and hook spacing all differ between equipment makers.

For sugar at 2,200 lb, the receiving plant usually wants a liner, a spout bottom with an inner closure, and bales delivered shrink-wrapped and kept off the floor. Those lines also want the same bag every time, so the spec sheet stays on file from the first order.

• Sugar and food powders at 2,200 lb SWL, in new bags with a liner
• Mineral and sand loads at up to 4,400 lb SWL, Type A, flat or spout bottom
• Resin at 1,500 lb SWL where the line is set up for a 50 in bag