Can you make concrete from crushed rock?

I tried making concrete from crushed rock 5/8 minus with small particles included. The troubles I encountered were these:

1. The load of crushed rock did not seem to be mixed evenly enough, so there were some parts that were nearly all chips of rock with no sand.

2. Even in the parts that had a lot of sand, it seemed that once I poured the concrete from my mixer into the forms, there would be parts that had no "soup" to them. When I tried to float the sidewalk with a hand float, I could not tamp the rocks down. They were simply too dry, with the "soup" just going somewhere else. On the other hand, some parts of the pour would finish by hand reasonably well. However, I required a finished surface ... for the entire surface to have a finished look. That was almost impossible.

So what did I do? I found some sand and mixed 50/50 with cement and water, and tried to smooth that out over the surface. But it did not work too well, as some areas dried differently, more slowly. And when some was ready to broom, the rest of the little square area was too wet, so the broom just brushed the rocks back up.

Yes, I was able to finish that segment of the pour, but by the end of the day my arms ached and I was very discouraged. After that I stopped using crushed rock. I do not plan to use the crushed rock again. I will use the crushed rock for some other type of project, and start all over on the rest of the sidewalk, with smooth rock/aggregate that has the correct mixture of sand and various sizes/particles of material.

I might add that I have done numerous small concrete projects in the past. Never had one so difficult in my life. No more crushed rock for me in concrete.