Method Description, Instructions and Tips for Success

General Description

Red dragons are easily the least popular of the "regular" color-coded dragons in RuneScape, because they are only found deep in Brimhaven Dungeon and deep in the Wilderness. Neither location is particularly easy to get to, and since you need to bank frequently, this is a bit of a turn off. An added annoyance is that in Brimhaven there are aggressive wild dogs in their area, which will distract anyone who has a combat level below 127.

The flip side of these disadvantages is easy to guess: none of the crowds at the red dragons that plague their green, blue and black counterparts. And since the addition of Summoning, you can use beasts of burden to dramatically cut down on the amount of time wasted running to and from the bank.

You are guaranteed about 7k worth of drops per kill, so these are a good moneymaker. But note that red dragons have very poor secondary drops -- they are arguably worse than blue dragons and even green dragons.

With level 70 skills, red dragons are fairly slow to kill. With level 90 skills you can kill them much more quickly.

At extremely high levels, I like to switch gears and take advantage of a couple of advanced abilities. I use super antifire potions (level 85 Herblore required) to allow me to make use of two-handed weapons, and then fight the dragons using Dharoks. This is somewhat dangerous, but you can get a lot of kills very quickly. I combine this with the pack yak's Winter Storage scrolls to let me stay for a full hour per trip rather than having to run back and forth to the bank constantly. This is a trade-off, because the scrolls themselves are worth about 400 gp each. However, in my tests, I have found that the scrolls allow me to make more money, especially given the long run to the red dragon area. This method also has some other advantages, including more Combat XP, more Summoning charms, and even a little bit of Summoning XP from the scrolls.

I tested this method using both food and prayer. While prayer is slightly more expensive, it is much safer, more enjoyable, and lets you get more kills per hour because you can let your HP level get lower (for bigger Dharok's whallops) and you don't have to spend so much time eating and juggling inventory.

Specific Method Details

Start by banking in Ardougne. Put on high defence Barrows melee gear, including an anti-dragon shield. Then take out of the bank a 4-dose super set, a 4-dose and a 2-dose antifire potion, a war tortoise pouch, bronze hatchet (or other cheap hatchet), 905 gold, 4-dose energy potion, and pineapple pizzas to fill the rest of your inventory.

Sail to Brimhaven from Ardougne and run south to the dungeon. Pay Saniboch his fee, head west and chop the vines, then take the second passage heading north (the one not blocked by more vines.) Drink the energy potion as you run.

Go to the end of this passage, and hop the stones across the lava. Run south and you'll find passages leading southeast and south; take the south one, which brings you to a chamber with fire giants. Run due east to get to a small anteroom with a log balance; when you cross that, you'll be in a large room that contains red dragons, baby red dragons and of course, wild dogs. Drop the axe, as you are now done with it, and summon your war tortoise.

Take your super set and an antifire dose and start fighting the red dragons. A good spot is right in the middle of the room; try to avoid the wild dogs as much as possible, of course.

As you pick up drops, move the dragonhides to the war tortoise by "using" them on it if you can't get out of combat to open the familiar normally. You can do the same with the bones but be sure not to bury them by accident! Continue fighting, using your potions and food, until your supplies are out and your food runs low; this should take a little over 30 minutes. When done, use Home Teleport to leave the dungeon, bank and repeat.

Note that you can save some time in getting to the dungeon if you have your house in Brimhaven; just teleport there and exit the portal to get to the island. This does mean sacrificing one or more inventory slots for the House Teleport, though.