A Noob's Success with AP...

[txclimber]

Hi, it's nice to meet you all.

For the record, I don't really know I'm doing. I'm sure that there are MUCH better and safer techniques to making AP than what I'm about to describe, but this is the result of about 3 days of my research on this site and the web. I did cut my own corners though, and perhaps that is what mosts interests you.

Ingedients: 100% HCL (Pool Supply), Acetone (Hardware Store), 3% hydrogen peroxide (Mal-Wart), baking soda, ice cubes, water.

I put a small beaker in a bowl of ice water, and poured in "some" acetone. Then I poured in "a little less than that" hydrogen peroxide that I had boiled down from 3% to "I don't know" concentration. If I had to guess based on the remaining liquid in my cooking pot, the hydrogen peroxide was 50% concentration or better. I did not measure any of this stuff, I just guessed at the proportions by looking at the liquid levels.

I stirred the beaker of acetone and hydrogen peroxide (H202) together a bit with a test tube, then set the beaker in a bowl of ice water. I then began adding 100% HCL to the mix, about 10 drops at a time, stirring in between. I let a couple of minutes elapse between putting the 10 drops in. At some point (30 drops?) the solution went from clear to cloudy, then started to form visible white crystals. It was then that I knew it would work ; )) I was absolutely thrilled, and still am. Anyhow the solution got thicker and thicker with pretty white AP crystals until adding more acid stopped doing anything, so I stopped.

I poured the slush out of the beaker onto a coffee filter, and washed the crystals with water a few times. Then I washed them with a weak solution of water + baking soda. (I hear that it's not necessary to neutralize the acid? Oh well...)

Total yield: A volume of crystals that would easily fill a 1.5" diameter sphere. Time to complete: 1/2 hour. (note the pic below doesn't show the entire yield).

Thanks to all who have contributed information. I'm having a great time with this stuff, and am responsible with it (shooting with 17HMR rifle at 100yds. Such fun!!!)

http://hvguy.4hv.org/temp/AP Synth/img1.jpg
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http://hvguy.4hv.org/temp/AP Synth/img2.jpg
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http://hvguy.4hv.org/temp/AP Synth/img3.jpg
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http://hvguy.4hv.org/temp/AP Synth/img4.jpg

[PTS]

Good for you mate.:)
But if you got your HCL from the pool shop it would be ~31% not 100% forgive me if i am wrong.

[The_Duke]

Hey great! Another useless AP thread....:rolleyes:

And "100% HCl" does not exist!

[txclimber]

Hey great! Another asshole posting in a forum!!

I don't give a shit whether 100% HCL exists or not. Talk about useless...

[Lewis]

Hey great! Another asshole posting in a forum!!

I don't give a shit whether 100% HCL exists or not. Talk about useless...

No, sir, YOU are the useless one. This is a forum about science, and believe it or not, we aren't impressed by the fact that you risked your life for a little AP.

Get a fucking clue.

[Frunk]

Hey great! Another asshole posting in a forum!!

I don't give a shit whether 100% HCL exists or not. Talk about useless...

Read the damn bottle and it will say 30-37% HCl. You are lucky that AP synthesis isn't very picky, but try using 100% nitric in a reaction where you need 30%.

If 100% HCl existed, you would be dangerously lying instead of being ignorant.

[Choppy]

I don't really know I'm doing.

Apparently so! What was the point in masking your chemical quanities? Nearly everybody has the ability to make this..unfortunately.

[Horrigan]

Maybe he meant liquid hydrogen chloride :D

[festergrump]

I did cut my own corners though, and perhaps that is what mosts interests you.

Nope. This is what interests me the most:

I don't really know [what] I'm doing.

"Pinch, Dab, & Dash" chemist wannabes coming close to Darwin Award nominations always grab my attention by the horns... :)

When everyone else jumps in and plays niggerpile... well, that's fun to watch, too! :D

[txclimber]

I guess that mentioning up front that I really don't know what I am doing wasn't enough.

Choppy: The above, and also, my intent wasn't to mask anything. My intent was to show that it could be done easily, without the use of even a graduated cylinder for measurement of the constituents.

Lewis: I wasn't trying to impress anyone. Also, I didn't risk my life. Or my hearing. Or my vision. Or my armhairs.

The fact that 100% HCL doesn't exist, is quite useless, to me, at this point in time. Looking back, I probably should have been more clear. I promise, it wasn't personal :rolleyes:

Is it a 2x4? A steel pole, or a badger maybe? What is up your asses? I threw some stuff together in my backyard, then posted on a forum, excited that IT FUCKING WORKED. Somehow I didn't even get credit for it working. Thanks! That tells me something about you guys.

[txclimber]

Nope. This is what interests me the most:

"Pinch, Dab, & Dash" chemist wannabes coming close to Darwin Award nominations always grab my attention by the horns... :)

Hey man, I never said that chemistry was my best field :D :D

My shit worked!

Awww, poor baby, I didn't order my chemicals 100% specified with a C of C on a purchase order. Is that what you all wanted me to do?? *sniff sniff*

Hooray for garage chemistry :cool:

[nbk2000]

What your experiment proves is that someone with a dangerous LACK of knowledge about what they are doing can, have, and will in the future, mess with things that can, have, and will in the future, maimed and killed people with FAR more experience than you.

The amount of AP in that filter is enough to blow every finger clean off of the hand holding it, and burger-meat the hand too.

Your peroxide was nowhere near 50%, as it's clearly at a full boil in your picture, meaning it's being decomposed and carried away by the steam, not concentrating.

We've had people here do it with 50%, and it produces so much heat it'd boil itself without the ice cooling and catch on fire, prior to explosion. :p

30 minutes is FAR too soon to be trying to collect a yield.

But anyways, the point is that because you got away with it once is no excuse to be proud. And coming here, to our 'house', and then complaining when a long-term resident dresses down the boorish n00b for foolish behaviour, is in itself intolerable.

Bye.

[BaronVonSchtupp]

Wow, mixing together stuff at unknown quantities and unknown concentrations is how one loses a hand, like the the saying goes. It's all fun and games till someone gets hurt.. and to tell you the truth I've been the "hurt" quite a few times, not seriously but enough to give you unbearable pain and skin trauma, and I don't wanna experience what it feels like to have a missing opposable thumb on one hand.

Let me just tell you, you won't be laughing at joking around about concentrations and qualities when you lose a part of your hand...considering you didn't even care about temperatures your quantity of ap is prolly 98% Dimer form, you prolly do not know what that is, they call it "Mother of Satan" for a reason, just wait till your time comes... and, oh boy will it come.

Also, when you come back onto this forum with 1 less eardrum, you are the one thats getting laughed at.... :)

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'Prolly' probably wants a cracker. :p NBK

[Pb_Producer]

You the kind of person that gives newcomers a very bad name, I also agree with nbk in that you are going to have a very short life in this hobby.

I recently decided to do my first AP production, I followed chemistry and added the right proportions, found the concentration of my HCl through a titration and was extremely careful (and scared) to follow directions and temperatures thoroughly, I must have read at least 6 hours on this subject. I also made a very small quantity just for the records.

[Gammaray1981]

Why is it that the first high-ish explosive (often first explosive at all) that the newbies try to make is the one with the big, stated-by-every-longtime-member-in-every-useless-AP-thread, "This is unstable and impractical to use" warning stickers?

Does the ease with which this stuff is produced just sweep all consideration for their own safety from their minds? Or is it that they think they're immortal? Because it seems to me that anything that will go off if you drop it, which will also remove your hand in any quantity, is not something to make a kilo of on your first try. (Phone, R.I.P)

And then they post about it. As if there aren't at least twenty other threads on the same subject. You succeeded, so did everyone else who tried. Well done, but we didn't need to know. Now go dispose of it safely before you become another victim and get H2O2 and ketones banned.

[209]

I only make minimal amounts of AP at a time for the occational electronic cap. You should see the way I handle AP, I handle it as if it were.........AP :D. I am currently searching for a safe(er) explosive for blasting caps, picric acid may be a possiblity.