This came to me by way of a friend who works at a distributor popular with the pyro community.

He relayed to me that ATF had been fishing for potentially suspicious orders involving hexamine.

For those of you who don't know, hexamine is the precursor to RDX in a rather simple synthesis requiring only HNO3 and H2SO4.

I don't know if this was precipitated by actual problems with k3wl or whether it was just general terrorist paranoia.

I also can't say if it was specific to this supplier or a new watched item part of an industrywide campaign. I didn't ask as I won't get that specific.

Anyone ordering hexamine might want to get it elsewhere from HNO3 and H2SO4. That combination, sold to an individual, is no good and is asking to get flagged.

I hope this is not a redux of the NH4NO3 paranoia.

If hexamine becomes a problem, it can be sourced OTC from Esbit brand fuel tablets at any Walmart or outdoor store. I can't comment on their purity or formulation beyond them being predominately hexamine with unknown binders and additives in an unknown quantity.

It'd be a shame to lose this one, too, because of the energetics out there.

I seriously hope this was a one-off problem with some idiot customers. Losing easy access to prepared tech or better hexamine is a serious inconvenience.

RDX is actually fairly straightforward to make. Whether an idiot can do it or not depends on the grade of the idiot, but I do recall a program from the History Channel which mentioned biker gangs making bombs out of stove fuel, which is probably the PC way to say RDX from hexamine.

Terrorist idiots will do what they do even without it, even though military best practice uses a booster with all AN devices. Their AN is presumably much better grade than the agricultural AN prills a terrorist would use (or even ANNM).

If this is the new thing, it's just more reactionary nonsense which will hurt honest amateur chemists and the law-abiding pyros, who use it legitimately in star formulations.

Reminds me of the defacto ban on psuedo. The only thing that effectively stopped was sick people from feeling better.

If idiots make explosives from hexamine it is HMTD or HDN, not RDX.
Idiots can't get the needed reagents for RDX production (white fuming nitric acid for example).
HMTD and HDN are a different matter. HMTD is a easily prepared organic peroxide and HDN is hexamine dinitrate.