notes on AN blasting...

[rjche]

Many years ago I played with AN explosives a bunch. I see all those mistakes being repeated in several posts here.

Here is my present understanding on making AN explode.

In cook's 1960's, Chemistry of Explosives, (I believe it was), research into maximizing sensitivity of AN revealed that finely ground An, well mixed with 1% powdered wax, (such as is used on dance floors), etc. and compressed to density of .7 or so (but not over 1.0), would initate in dynamite stick size diameters, with #6 cap.

Prilled AN is commonly coated with a surface material to limit moisture absorbing from the air. It's usually about 1%, wax and is on the surface. Prills won't howver explode from a cap because the air volume between prills is to great. But waxed prills, ground fine, and compressed back to density about .8 ought be #6 (1 gram) cap sensitive if the surface coat was a wax or burnable stuff. Some makers use other powder coatings not burnable at all.

The detonation cook explained was first that of the cap, which created a high pressure wave which compressed the small air bubbles in fine ground AN to incandescent temps, which decomposed AN particle surfaces instantly, releasing oxygen that burned the surface fuel, causing a large boost to the detonation wave pulse, so instead of weakening it grew in intensity, raising pressure and temp high enough to bring along the rest of the AN particles.

The surface reaction depended on small air spaces in density 1 or less, of fine ground AN, to bring air temp to incandescent levels from the cap's shock wave. That doesn't happen with large air spaces such as between prills, unless a large booster is used.

That need for the whole batch to get initiated fast, is somewhat similar to the trick used with green powder in firecrackers. There, a fluffer, (sawdust sometimes) is added to larger crackers, to allow the flame to flash through the whole bulk to get the rapid burning needed to make a satisfying blast. Without that the powder is concentrated and tends to burn like a fuse, or fuel in a rocket motor, slowly and without much bang.

The importance of air bubbles is also demonstrated by blasters who roll commercial dynamite back and forth on a flat surface just before loading a hole, so as to break up the settled nature of the mix, adding lots of fine air bubbles throughout the stick. Those fine air bubbles adds to its brisance, when a #6 cap is used, which is helpful in blasting rock.

Hard Prilled AN also depends on surface reaction to initate detonation from a passing shock wave. Powdered red phosphorus is the most powerful sensitizer fuel, sulfur or polysulfides come in around next, with carbon dust a bit less so. Less sensitivity as the ignition temp of the fuel gets higher.

Plain fertilizer prilled AN, with all its additives, and some moisture, will detonate in 2 inch cylinders if compressed in a balanced oxygen propane atmosphere, which is ignited. That gas may actually detonate, (called ping in auto engines). Whether it does or not, it is able to take the prills up to sufficient temp, pressure, and time for it to give a complete detonation. Experiments were not done with propane near the top % limit of explosibility (At pressure not atmospheric, (lots of difference there, and no data in books), and that ought be done because it may lead to a large increase in power.

Research done into gas initiated detonations, used propane tanks, with their pressure relief mechanisms deactivated, and drilled for a model airplane glow plug. They were filled with raw AN prills, not oven dried or treated anyway, (but normal dryness, not damp) then pressurized to 100 psig propane, then taken up to 300 psig with added oxygen gas.

They discovered the tank had to sit an hour or two to allow the gasses to mix because the propane was pushed to the bottom of the tank by the incoming oxygen, and they did not mix due to turbulance because of the prills. Without time to allow thermal motion to mix the gasses they got duds. No disaster with spark or glow plug for they just waited an fired, until one time it went. Then they knew how long mixing takes.

(their tanks were small ones. A large tank ought sit a day or so probably)

Initation was by lighting up the glow plug after suitable burial. It turned out to be a wonderful earth mover. A 14 oz propane tank full of AN, 3 ft deep, could fluff dirt in a circle about 6 ft diameter, but could not throw it out of the hole. It just went up in the air about a foot, loosened up nicely and fell straight back into the same spot. Fluffed up it caused about an 8 inch dome over the blast hole. Just a whump in the ground, no blast noise at all. Very good for planting a tree, or fluffing the dirt under a good tree that was dying from root block.

(Fluffing dirt by dynamite used to be done a lot in Agriculture, when planting trees, or when good trees began to appear sickly, before explosives were made unpopular by lots of regulations)/

In the 1930's a 12 year old kid could buy caps, ($1.50 a box of hundred fuse #6 caps) blasting fuse, about dollar a 100 ft roll, 40% dynamite at about quarter a stick, or 2 inch diameter black powder blasting sticks about same price, no questions asked, in eastern Ky coal regions. Home miners sent kids to get supplies and nothing was thought of it. Today even miners ain't trusted to buy it.)

So AN can be initiated by a burning gas, rather than a primary explosive caused detonation wave. The trick is to get the surface of the AN very hot from the burning gas, and at the same time have pressure on it above about 200 psig, so it can go into detonation of its own. That's the trick that caused AN fires to explode in famous shipping accidents.

(The pressure of the 300 psig oxypropane mix probably goes way past the pressure to burst the average propane tank, but as the tank swells like a balloon, ( aerial bombs go to almost double diameter you know before they burst much like a balloon), and the explosion is done before they rupture).

Summing up, AN explodes well if its below density=1, has fuel (of low ignition temp) on its surface of about 1% by wt. to carry a surface reaction which builds temp and pressure to take along the rest of the AN.

You can have the other 5% of fuel needed to make the whole thing oxygen balanced if it is not of a type that interferes with the 1% surface reaction. (6% oil, not absorbed internally into the prills, but sloshing around the surface, for example, drowns the surface reaction flame and cools it a lot, plus all the large air spaces requires a large booster, to make enough gas volume to get things up where they need be).

Prills in a container have about 50% air volume and 50% prill, so it takes a sizeable whack to raise that much air to high temps. A test is to put 100cc prills in a beaker, and 100 cc water in another beaker, and pour it in the prills till filled, and notice how much water is gone from the other beaker. It's usually around half.

A large gas volume from the booster is needed to do the trick on prills. Fine Ground AN has less air volume, and can easily be compressed so there are almost no air spaces. It must be limited to light compression to allow enough air spaces to sensitize it maximum.

Experimenters used an ordinary glow plug in their tanks to ignite the gas mixture. At 300 psi, a spark plug gap needs be only a sheet of typing paper wide to insure sparkover. Gasoline engines with 10 compression ratio only go to about 150 psig and take 20 KV to spark over a 25 thousandths gap at full throttle. Auto ignition won't spark over a normal gapped plug at 300 psig.

They also learned the plug in a tank must be sealed to prevent slow leaks. A drop of locktite on new plugs insulator did that, and a drop on any threads in the tank. (Plugs do slow leak for they don't need to be absolutely sealed in pulsed ignition service. They don't leak very much but over several hours time they can allow significant tank pressure loss, and duds.

The above is kind of rambling because it brings in lots of side issues an experimenter runs into. It may help those trying to re-invent the wheel though.

(Hey That's not a crazy idea. One man who didn't know better, found egg shaped wheels work'ed fine if in pairs, with contour shaped so a pair of them side by side always had the same radial distance from axle to ground. When rolling, weight shifted from one wheel to the other as it turned. It was great for getting out of mud and snow. Traction was almost as good as tracks. SO, trying old stuff can lead to new stuff.
That, incidentally was how the gas initation of AN was discovered. It's not heard much about because everyone rather just use a stick of dynamite to start the stuff going.)

But, if you have no dynamite, nor caps, Ahh haa, a farmer can, in a police state, with a 100 lb propane tank, four sacks of AN, and a cylinder of welding oxygen, dig a very satisfying cattle watering pond.

That much AN definitely moves the dirt way out of the hole, from about as deep as one would care to dig.

Cost about $20 (if its not your tank or an one one) compared to a dozer charging $600 doing the same thing.

[xoo1246]

Very interesting post indeed. Unconventional is good.
Reminds me of the fact that I shall try detonatating AN in mixture with thermite.

[Mr Cool]

Very interesting indeed!
If one of you guys that likes playing with AN charges could try this that'd be great, it'd be good to get first-hand info from someone.
Do you think AN prills are roughly the same size, no matter where you get them from? Because I'd imagine that prill size could affect how well this works. The ratio of prill:air space will be constant with spherical prills no matter how big they are so you always get the same gas mix:AN ratio, but with big prills less of the AN is in contact with, or within a certain distance from, the gas mixture, which may reduce sensitivity. But with small prills you'll have small air spaces, so it'll be harder for the combustion in the gas to propagate. Did it mention the prill size, rjche?

[rjche]

no mention of prill size in the books I have read...

I believe they are all about the same which is a a bit smaller than a BB.

Their size probably has something to do with mfg costs, and amount of surface coating per sack of prills.

Prills are coated with various things to control water being absorbed from air.

If you want pure AN you have to dissolve it. The coating is almost always insoluble and can be filtered out of the solution. Then evaporate the water and you will get fairly pure AN crystals.

AN is now made directly from air, by making ammonia first, then the nitrogen oxide, and combining them.

Nitrogen synthesizing plants world wide make it. Since there are no other chemicals that can enter that process, all you can get is pure AN. They screw that purity up by a percent or so by adding coatings later.

Research showed that in large quantities no coatings inhibited it exploding. In fact even ammonium sulfate was found to be capable of exploding in large quantities, as in ship holds.

THE key to making AN and lots of other lower energy explosives fully go, is to hit it hard enough to get its surface well above its decomposition temp, and hold things there long enough for all of it to decompose.

A practical understanding of this is that AN begins to decompose at around 200 C. At 400 C that rate is much faster, and at 2000 C it is explosively fast. It generates a lot of heat and a lot of gas when it decomposes.

An explosion is just a lot of hot gas created in microseconds or milliseconds, depending on brisance.

The initiating device must get some of the AN up to thousands of degrees C, and at a pressure of tens of thousands of psi, so that the heat in the initiator created gas will transfer to the AN fast and get it up to thousands of degrees temp in milliseconds.

The conductivity of heat from gasses to solids increases enormously as their pressure and temperature both rise to high values, and it helps a lot if they are moving fast, all things that initators cause.

If too little initiation is there, the pressure will rapidly drop as the gases expand into the air spaces of prills, and will not go far before cooled to where the AN is not decomposing fast enough to keep the rapid rise in temp and pressure going up.

It then goes back down and the "detonation" (fast decomposition) slows and soon dies out.

The amount of energy given off per gram of "exploding" material (AN here) controls how critical the initiation is. All explosives have to be hit hard and fast to start them, except those rated as primary explosives.

Some primaries will go from normal thermal agitation of their own molecules. NI3 is an example.

If a decomposing compound has enough excess energy to overwhelm any losses the rate of rise in that decomposition can be explosively fast, and the whole thing be over with in several microseconds.

A major problem in doing that is to have the hot compressed initiator gasses get through the mix, to reach all of the stuff fast as possible.

That problem is what causes the detonation to die out in small cylinders, so only that stuff near the cap actually goes.

Slow explosives are less energetic than sassy ones. A great overabundance of energy in sassy ones translates to high peak pressures and high temps which go way above decomposition conditions. Those things then lead to getting the job done very fast also translate into high explosion peak pressure, high temperatures and high detonation velocity.

The really good high explosives have way more energy than enough to get the surrounding stuff way past decomposition temp and at very high pressures. The poorer ones (AN) have less excess energy, and thus can't get it done as fast as the high energy ones.

Detonation waves have been surrounded in mystery, fancy math, and other stuff that makes it hard to get a simple picture of what is really going on.

Mostly its similar to the above, and if not exactly so, that above gives one a good woking understanding.

The above ignores radiated heat, which is also significant in explosions. Also, explosives that develop very hot heavy metal ions tend to be good initiators.

Thus good initatiors tend to have lead, mercury and cadmium, for example as the carriers of the explosive radical. I never learned whether the heavy metals got their advantage from better heat radiation or just plain mechanical inertia impact at high velocity with unexploded material.

It seems that is their only advantage because the do not have higher specific heats than lighter metals, (meaning they don't carry more heat along with each atom), nor other obvious (to me) advantages other than sheer weight.

In any case do not try to make a race horse out of a plow horse. You can get some improvement, but nothing like starting with a race horse to begin with.

AN is a plow horse. It is good for moving dirt and breaks rocks in large blocks due to its less violent smack than nitro based high percentage dynamites do.

It is good for making large shrapnel in military shells, and grenades, and usually has aluminum powder to get that secondary blast. One explosives authority claimed it comes from aluminum taking oxygen from any CO2 or H2O (at incandescent temperatures) and giving es off lots more heat doing that.

AN is a much cooler explosive than nitroglycerine dynamite, and it is used a lot mixed with them to give the same strength (and slower speed) with much less NG, saving much money, and being less dangerous where the material blasted causes combustible dust, like coal.

So with the above understanding of AN, the experimenter can avoid working hard to make AN do something it is not suitable for, such as making a shaped charge for example. The military uses it in small barrels (10 gallons or so) to disrupt roads by burying them and causing large craters.

They apparently don't use it anymore for much else.

As I recall, good stuff we peons can lay hands on, can generate peak pressures around 4 million psi, and temps I don't offhand recall, but they are way up there in kilos, and velocity of detonation around 6000 meters a sec.

AN and fuel is around half that and often worse. With other good stuff added to help it along, it gets better, and is easier to get off, the more good stuff present.

Some regard that as helping the AN, others say that's just screwing up the good stuff. Depends on how much of either you got. No point using AN at all if you got plenty of good stuff.

But where can one lay hands on 50 lb bags of good stuff for $7 a bag?
More like a couple hundred a case for good dynamite.


The moral of all that is AN and fuel is only useful for pushing dirt around. It is not good for cracking rock. It is also pukey for taking down a building with a truck full of it parked next to the building.

That is so well known that many explosive experts had a real hee haw at the government claim that a ryder truck of AN, parked 20 ft from the murrah building smashed 3000 psi compression strength 3 ft diameter columns of reinforced concrete at distances where its pulse pressure was down to hundreds of psi.

Just can't be so.

Somebody had put good stuff on those columns. Witnesses all agreed as did seismographs that there were two explosions. The first, not all that loud, rocked the building, (shattered columns) several seconds later another major lout, (The truck bomb outside) gave the building a big push and blew in all the windows.

The cracked columns couldn't take side push so the whole thing came down.

I recall the anti war fever of the 60's. An anti war activist parked a PU truck with several barrels of AN and kerosene in its bed, next to a U of Mich Lab doing mil work.

I sorta recall it used a few sticks of construction dynamite in each barrel and maybe prima cord between barrels or just a cap in each barrel, to touch it all off.

Really ruined the truck, but all it did was blow out the walls, and slideable furnitue and stuff inside sitting on the floors of the two story concrete beam brick building, leaving the reinforced concrete beams of the frame sitting there, unhurt.

I belive it left the floors intact also.

The beams however were not even scorched, which makes all the explosives people who aren't fakers, know that no truck in the road did-in the Murrah building.

Most people can figure out who had access to put good stuff on the beams inside the building also.

As example of being close to a sassy one, a semi loaded with construction dynamite caught fire and was pulled off the side of the road and was burning rather modestly when a man driving and wife on passenger side slowly drove past it on the road. Truck was on here side.

Not their lucky night, it exploded as they were across from it.

Accident report didn't say how far they were, but said the truck was well off the road on their passenger side. His wife was killed by the shock wave, and he wasn't hurt significantly.

He said there was just a big blue light an not all that much noise (his eardrums were probably sticking out his butt) and it didn't hurt at all. (of course... he was probably knocked out for a spell).

It also didn't do much to his car, except take out windows, really dent up the tin, and deposit it a short distance away.

Explosions can be freaky, for it depends on where initation points are as to where blast waves reinforce and where they null out.

Guess his luck was bad as to being passerby when it went, but pretty good as to being in a relative null point. His wife was not in a good null spot apparently.

You can see that same thing demonstrated in carnival blow-me-up stunts. Choose your position from a wad of dynamite, and put a deflection plate just right (trial and error with a munchable substitute for ya head) till a spot is found where it does little damage, and viola, you got an act.

hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, Satch Elmo will now blow hisself up, See it all for a dollar.

You can become famous, but people gotta shout a lot around you to get heard.

It's probably also dangerous for such deaf people to walk on a RR track unless they go barefoot and feel carefully for vibs of coming trains.

Jesting,... but remember, explosion noises, (all of em in air), provide lots of high freq energy above 2 Khz, which breaks the short high frequency pickup hairs in your inner ear.

The low freq ones are long and flexible and take a helluva beating without breaking but the high ones are relatively short and stiff, and a good smack breaks them off.

Break off one tuned to resonate at say 2000 to 2100 Hertz, and you don't hear sounds at that frequency anymore for life. (They do not grow back).

So boom box fever, blasting fever, a wife with voice tuned to high freqs and with strong lungs, all lead to a lot of saying "hey" or "say-at-agin" and "wha-did-ee say?" after repeated exposures.

Younguns who like to hear air blasts, and won't wear ear plugs (good ones for really sassy blasts) might be doomed to not hearing the lady say "wanna-fuk" and answer her with a "naw I'd rather have a beer" cause he thought she said "wanna-coke". Bad hearing can be a bummer.

Don't laugh, I got that problem from playing a lot with chlorate sulfur explosives when a teen. Back in them days folks didn't know one oughta wear ear protection when shooting, and blowing up things.

I also liked a 16 inch bbl 7.7 mm captured Jap rifle, which stung my face when I fired it, specially if I used aircraft machine gun ammo in it.

Macho shit then, all that.

I was proud owner of the loudest gun in town. Didn't know a damn then about velocity energy and stuff. We kids all thought more noise meant better. Many soldiers came back with a bag of mil weapons he snuck in.

Reason I drift is there are obviously a bunch of younguns reading this forum. As a group, they don't think of things rather obvious to older persons. It's up to elders to put important ideas in their head before they damage it discovering them for themselves. Some parents do this but most don't have a clue what the dangers are.

Mine didn't know much about anything, and I did a lot of stupid things.

Example. I found a bunch of fuse dynamite caps in dad's can of black powder. Didn't know what the hell they were (AGE 12). So I filled them up with his FFFG powder, laid them on a brick, and lit the powder end with a match. They went fffffttttt up like a skyrocket and bang. I couldn't figure out what made the bang. Other 22 hulls I did that with didn't bang.

Later 6 of us got to studying one and found it appeared to have wax in the bottom inch or so. It wouldn't come out with a tooth pick, so brave me, laid it on the anvil and hit it smartly with a hammer. The others ringed around to see.

It just got flat. Hell I hit it agin. Got flatter. I really whopped it and there was a very loud noise, and all the kids looked like they saw a ghost.

ME.

I felt nothing, but was bleeding from about 6 gashes in the face, and some on the arms where the pukey fulminate cap sorta went, but not with its usual gusto, which would have caused the shrapnel to be nearly dust. (thats the way they tested caps long ago. put one on a lead plate, and set it off and look at how big the gouges in the lead were from fragments. Big gashes meant bad cap.

Ma had a conniption fit, when when she saw me, but held steadyt till she had gotten things back together and taped them shut. They healed nicely. No doctors then they cost too much.

Dad had another fit when he learned what I did.

Ma lit into him for having such things around, and it probably damaged his hearing for she had lungs like a racehorse, and pitch that could crack a glass.

All true, and confessed, to show you that people who appear intellingent when adults can be abysmally stupid/ignorant when young.

The things we fool with on this forum can be very unforgiving if you make as real screw up. Keep that in mind. Deal with them like you would approach a copperheadm which you better understand.

Remember, and never forget, an ounce of good stuff can rip up your guts and lungs, from shock wave induced spalling of gut surfaces everywhere there is an air bubble inside, with little damage showing outside, if it explodes in sassy mode, and within 2 or 3 feet of you.

Irrelevant factiod...remember an alligator or crock, can outrun a dog for about 25 ft, and you are way slower than either of em.

You WILL NOT outrun most runaway reactions which involve energetic components.

Remember a runaway fulminate mix in a drinking glass Me and a very large humanoid was watching it as it turned pale yellow, and darker yellow, and both turned to run, and as we turned it went through red, and puffed off making a noise like a medium human cough, throwing high grade nitric at probably 500 F up in a large fan spray.

We didn't get much and jumped in a close pond, so we didn't turn yellow where it hit, and it had cooled by the time it came down on us, so not burns, but it ruined a tree above it.

Also about eye protection. get some good polycarbonate work goggles, that can stop a 22 short. Not expensive, and wear em...all the time.

Example, I rode a bike in the woods at night, and cut my left eye cornea with a briar sticking out in the path. Since then I see two of everthing in the left eye, and one in the right eye, and it really screws up fine work. I was being macho and not wearing helmet or goggles.

V E R Y expensive mistake. Can't be fixed. Try not to reproduce it, with some shards from a mix that goes astray.

Eyeballs are worth at least 50 grand each, and one ought not damage them, without great necessity.

And as to AN, let me repeat, don't try to make a race horse out of a plow horse. It has its place, and does a good job where its applicable. It's the cheapest best earth mover around. Most mining companies use it by the trainload.

Iron ore mining in north central usa uses telephone pole augers to make the holes, a truck pours a barrel of AN in, and they can move a hillside with a hundred holes or so.

AN has its place.

Oh yes

before wandering off again, let me say while on this subject:


NEVER hide from a nearby high explosive snuggled up close behind a tree. Solid cylinders focus the advancing shock wave so it goes around both sides and meets at your headbone.

I discovered this from 5 lbs 75% rock blasting stuff at the end of 20 ft cap wires, touched off as a youngun hiding "safely" behind a 3 ft diameter oak tree, done to make more "noise" than anybody else for new years.

Major pain. Much ear damage. Not good at all.

When two blast waves meet, they are about double the smack of one alone.

One alone at that distance I later learned, was at the threshold of doing internal damage of significance.

My throat, nasal passages, and sinuses out-hurt all other things. Skin on face stung smartly. When lots of things hurt at the same time its hard to judge which hurts most. Its almost like they take turns on stage as pain cycles here and there, so each gets its share of time.

Major mistake, from "well that must be safe" unsophisticated analysis. (The most common kind with younguns).

[shooter3]

Excellent Fart. I think APAN is an accident in the making. I was wondering about AN/sulfer; It probably must be confined pretty well to detonate. If your blasting a stump, can the charge (in a plastic bag)be tamped well enough to act as a casing? Will small charges of AN/S detonate? Say 1/4 lb?

[a_bab]

Since I have some red P, I may try to detonate a mixture of AN/P. But could be this mix very sensitive or there is a possibility for some (dangerous) side reactions ?

[vulture]

Mixtures of P with oxidizers are always extremely sensitive. I would recommend to keep your AN totally anhydrous, because when it get's wet some HNO3 will be produced which will either ignite the P or oxidize it to H3PO4 and that would be a total waste.

[NERV]

KIFE contains a useful AN RP composition. It says it is ignightable with a #6 cap. The composition is made by the folowing.

AN.......................95.0%
Red phosphorus............1.0%
soybean oil...............3.5%
dehydrated grond coffee...0.5%

The coffee is supposed to inceas the power by 50%. The book says it has a detonation rate of 4600-5600 M/sec. I am planning on trying it, but I need to get some some RP.

[rjche]

Fine ground AN and 1% wax compressed .8 to 1 density goes from #6 cap.

Wax is much harder to ignite than P or S (higher ign temp)

Therefore AN P will be easier to go than wax.

All red P compounds MUST have about 1 to 5% basic compound additive to prevent any acidic ph conditon, which causes spontaneous ignition.

red P exposed to air oxidizes slowly, forming P2O5, which absorbs water like a hoe can absorb bar drinks. That forms phosphoric acid, and away she goes. EVEN if very wet, a mixture of red P and chlorates will ignite and burn eventually if stored.

Never met anyone with guts to try mixing Chlorate with yellow P.

To test solid mixtures for sensitivity to impact, put some on an anvil and hit it with a small hammer. If it explodes do not grind it mixed, nor treat it roughly. and only handle it in large quantities if kept wet with a non flamable liquid, like freon or water; Needless to say, both P and S mixes with chlorate go violently if tested. Almost as impressive as tissue soaked NG paper.

If testing a liquid explosive, this hammer test fails unless you put a drop in tissue paper and then hit it.

A nitroglycerine drop on an anvil will only spit if hit with a hammer. The hammer squirts the liquid all away before there is metal to metal contact. Only that trapped in surface roughness of the steel goes. Very unimpressive, Very deceptive. Put a drop on a inch square of toilet paper and hit it and it will shiver your timbers. (Make sure you got ear protection when doing this test. If your ears ring after hearing ANY noise they are doing that because you damaged them some. It is accumulative...)

Coffee grounds apparently do not contain any magical component. They give air spaces to the mix, so when anything goes, its products, at Hi temp and Hi psi, get the heat through the mix to the farthest reaches so it all goes much faster. Very useful in lazy explosives.

Which needs be a concern for those who grind nitrate and sugar in a blender. Haven't heard of it going on anyone yet, but if it did, while all airborne, whooeee. Do it at a distance if you must do thatm and if doing it in a residential area be prepared to explain a window breaking blast. Hey somethin fell outta the sky making sparks, and before it hit the ground it went boom.

Firecracker makers use sawdust in fine ground black powder (meal powder or green powder)for the same purpose. Black powder works poorly in guns UNLESS it is in the form of graphite coated grains, which makes air spaces. Graphite kills static electricity in the can, and also conducts heat well. Same for smokeless powder. When packed tightly both form rocket fuel, which burns rather slowly. smokeless can detonate though if you get the nozzle too small.

Anyway, Be careful with red P. It can be mixed with chlorates but is known as the most dangerous explosive to oldtimers, for none fooled with it very long before having an accidental ignition. (Yep me too)

It Explodes in any quantity bigger than about a table spoon if ignited. Mercury fulminate puffs off if lit with a match in pea size quantity. Double that and it will usually detonate, and numb the fingers that lit it.

When fooling with making fulminates keep mercury bearing solutions off the skin. It is a potent allergy causing compound. you'll know you got an allergy when that red raised band appears under your pants belt, and itches you crazy. Anti histamines helps. If it don't go away in 24 hours you will have to sand the dead skin off where it spashed on you, for it will slowly absorb into the skin below and keep the rash going for days. Doesn't improve your IQ either to have mercury in the system.

Sulfur and chlorate is used in railroad torpedoes, with about a tablespoon of the stuff packed tightly in a 2 inch by 1 inch wafer aobut half inch thick. These are strapped on the rails in emergencies to warn other trains that obstruction is ahead. They are not very sensitive to reasonable handling in their wrapped wafer, and do not go off if dropped from waist high. But, when run over with a steel wheel, they're quite impressive, and loud enough for an engineer to hear above the noises of his steam engine belching and farting at full throat. Never tested one to see if an auto tire would set one off, but expect that would.

Used to steal em as kids and climb a building and drop a rock on em.

Made a very satisfying blast, and sometimes some rock came back up.

They had about 5% calcium carbonate in the mix, sealed in shellac dipped paper, so there would be little shrapnel and no chance of moisture getting to the stuff.

No one else but "some" folks during the vietnam war, dared use red P commercially. It has the awesome energy output of about 1500 calories per gram. Nitroglycerine puts out about 600 calories per gram. GET THE POINT?

Sulfur is much less energetic than phosphorus, but still nothing to be mistreated. I know of no one who ever ground dry sulfur chlorate mix in a mortar and pestle and didn't have an accident. Grinding it water wet is safe. Freon wet is safe. Alcohol, kerosene, gasoline, acetone or other liquid fuel solvent wet is dangerous.

Do be careful. things get you (or more likely someone else not aware of anything), when you least expect it.

Chlorate red P was used in Vietnam in a huge barrel shaped bomb. It was full of little pkgs like the torpedoes above. They were kept wet in a low pressure freon. When dropped they burst at about 1000 ft, and spread about 15,000 little freon wet bomblets over a large area.

When they dried in couple hours ANYTHING stepping on them made a large blast. Took the feet off untold animals and some humans, but what the hell, it was yellow people and critters and not us. Being in a jungle, with no medical help, and a raw whopper-burger size wound in a foot is a sorry way to go.

The noise was to help distant sonobouys (land type) hear anything walking around in that large sector area.

THE disaster came when a test canister spread some too high over Eglin Fla test range and they drifted out into the gulf several hundred yards.

They floated, (major design oversight). They washed up on public beaches. Freon gone, water wetness soon to dry out,in blistering sun, temp likely to cause spontaneous explosions, and hundreds of feet coming shortly after daylight...Panic... Assholes in major tetanic contraction.

Base cmdr sent "a" sergeant to gather them up. He was not told what he was doing. He collected several cardboard boxes full of them, got hot, tired, and threw one into the weapons carrier truck. It dissapeared in a major blast, as did he. News hit the papers. WE found out. Inquiry revealed how they were using the stuff in Vietnam jungles. Major anger among design personnel. Some pissed on their desks and quit, mumbling things about fucking idiots and crazy war and similar seditious utterances.

I'm putting all this stuff in the hi expl forum because it relates to serious dangers of getting careless with more than teaspoon quantities of Hi expl compounds.

If it was in the other forums, it might never be seen by the very ones needing it most. It's mostly driving home a safety message. Those needing it are the newbies, still having stereo vision, stereo hearing, ten fingers, and basicly no large dents in their armor...yet.

I appreciate the moderators being tolerant. I've tried to spread some humor in it to allow it to sink into disinterested youth.

Most of them know all about the above, and can see how a little drift might save a future nobel prize in chemistry winner from aborting his career from the usual ignorance and fearless attitude which plagues younguns.

Nothing in nature is so awesome as ignorance in motion.

If someone could scan federoff's picitiny arsenal "encyl of explosives" where newbies could get it there is a wealth of info in that about what can go wrong.

They charge hundreds of bucks for it on CD.

Vol C discusses Chlorate explosives. It is a very large work though. Probably near a gigabyte for the set. Major compression could get certain volumes spread around though. I had to leave mine when I left that area, but it was a well thumb worn set.

[Polverone]

Several months ago I looked for the "Encyclopedia of Explosives and Related Items" and found the rather expensive CD-ROM set that you have mentioned. It is something that I would like to buy when I get the money... However, I was recently searching for this work again and could find no place to buy it. Has it ceased to be distributed, or was I just doing a bad job searching? It wouldn't entirely surprise me, given recent information-suppression trends. If it is now unavailable for purchase, I will have to track down one of the libraries that already has it and sweet-talk the librarian into letting me copy the CDs to a laptop.

[rjche]

It comes up searching google.com with keywords

Fedoroff encyclopedia of explosives

Still listed in UK at this site.

<a href="http://www.aslib.co.uk/notes/1999/sep/cd-rom/05.html" target="_blank">http://www.aslib.co.uk/notes/1999/sep/cd-rom/05.html</a>

May not be available in US anymore due to bushitis which has gotten lots of doo-gooders "helping out" by shutting down the nation.

[Mr Cool]

Has anyone here ever tried to make AN prills, with a shower head or something? Because if it was practical you could make AN prills with colloidial sulphur added very easily. You might even be able to add very fine Al as well, if you kept stirring the AN soln.

[DarkAngel]

I have thought about it sometimes.
Maybe it could be done using a container with some tiny holes drilled in the bottom,where you would pour liqued NH4NO3 in and than collect the droplets in a very strong cold solution of AN in water.

[ALENGOSVIG1]

According to federoff, there hasnt been wax in FGAN since 1948. What about hexamine? Ive tried the Hexamine ADDUCT in KIFE and it worked.

[KinePak]

Yesterday, I successfully detonated a 50lb bag of AN Coated/Prilled Fertilizer with kinepak as my booster charge. I simply added 1gallon of diesel to the 50lb bag which I let soak for about 4 hours, and then put the kinepak in the center of the bag, and I videoed it for you guys to see, so just go to my FTP link, and then pub-explosives-9-7-02, and you will see the movie, it was very fucking intense, to say the least.

[xoo1246]

That is one nice little explosion... 23 kg, you must live in the middle of nowhere. Or have very tolerating neighbours.
Anyway, nice work. This must be forum record. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />
Were you hit by debris and/or were you pushed of your feet by the airblast?
You seem to have been fairly close to the site. Were you using commercial ANNM?

<small>[ September 08, 2002, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: xoo1246 ]</small>

[spydamonkee]

man that video is crazy, nice work man, how deep did you bury the thing it didnt look deep, and also this is killing me and probably other viewers....... wtf were you gonna say @ the end "dude there is no way........"???????????

love the start *this is gonna hurt *ow *ow" lol

[KinePak]

"Dude there is no way that was 2 kinepaks", we used commercial 34-0-0 fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate. set off with Kinepak, yea we were mainly just seeing if we could actually set the stuff off, I mean all we did was open the bag pour in 1 gallon of diesel set the two kinepaks in there and big fuckin boooooooommmmmmmmm.
Oh yea this was at my lake, MS is very lax, I mean people shoot, blow up all kinds of things, the closest house is like 2 miles.

<small>[ September 09, 2002, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: KinePak ]</small>

[spydamonkee]

nutz...

im starting to understand the power of AN Explosives, i was thinking we were gonna need like 50 - 100 kg's in 10 different charges to move part of a hill for a downramp but it starting to look like alot less.

damn....

<small>[ September 10, 2002, 05:52 AM: Message edited by: spydamonkee ]</small>

[Helos]

Kinepak: Your FTP doesn,t work?
When I try to acess it, it tells me that I have no rights.

[the_unbound]

..Vol C discusses Chlorate explosives. It is a very large work though

Hi,
I have Vol C from Federoff (Encyclopedia of Explosives and Related Items)

I'll upload the Volume tomorrow.
@ rjche really nice posts

[a_bab]

the_unbound, please e-mail me ASAP.

[simply RED]

NG is very explosive in all manners.
Once i put a few drops on the balcony and hit it very weak with a small hammer, nothing...
i tried again and hit it harder....BOOOOM! 5 minutes nearing nothing at all!

[Mick]

kinepak, whats the go with your FTP?
it won't let me connect, its like the FTP isn't there.

pingged the IP address, and its got a good ping time(sub 400ms)

i tried connecting with both cuteFTP and IE, and neither of them wish to connect.

[KinePak]

sorry, it is running now

[Helos]

It seems like it still dont work :)

[kingspaz]

right, i think this is starting to get quite off topic and not contribute to the forum so if anybody else has problems with KinePak's ftp then can they sort it out with email and not clog the thread.

[Ctrl_C]

mind if i rip those videos off of you to put on the (Forum) FTP?

[KinePak]

Yea, go ahead thats fine, hey man also download those FM Manuals too, that way you can organize them on the FTP

[DBSP]

Hey rjche I tried the first mixture you mentioned yesterday. It worked beautifuly. Thank you!!

I spent a few minutes to read this entire thread last sunday and especially noticed the first mixture, I then went to have a talk with my grandmother and I remembered the dancefloor wax thing and asked her if she knew about some similar wax, she rose and started looking under the sink and pulled out a bottle of liquid floor wax. I ran home and pulled out a can of powdered AN(cold pack). Weighted it and made some calculations and then added 2% wax(3g of fluid wax)(I added the double ammount since the wax was dissolved in some solvent that evapourated quickly and left a quite small ammount of wax behind) which in turn was added to 5g acetone in order to make it more fluid and thus being easier to mix with the AN. I stirred the AN for about ten minutes and then I added approx 1,5-2g Al(home milled!). I poured it into an emty coce can and made a det out of ~4-5g HMTD only slightly pressed. I was going to a friend and thought I'd stop by at the lake and detonate it on my way, but there where people there so I went to my friend right away instead. There I got a bit drunk and when my I called my mother and asked her to pic me up, my brother came on the phone and asked if he shuld bring the charge with him, I told him to do that and we then stopped by at the lake we prepared the charge. We(he) inserted the det and put everything into a plastic bag that was sealed and a roch was taped to the charge. I held the camera and the lighter and he held the charge. When it was lit he threw it into the lake and said: FUCK it didn't sink. I told him to cover his ears and look away from the charge and after 15s a slight crack was heard and I heard some water splattering on the surface. I then asked if he thought it was a complete detonation(since I thought it sounded like a regular cap alone), he then gave me a funny look and said: it went off allright, we then ran away since it was close to the willage where I live and it wasn't supposed to be heard at all(this was an hour after dark or so).

Today one of my brothers friends told him that he had heard "a fucking Bang" last night so it probably heard quite well.

I don't know if the charge detonated so easily because of the wax or the fact that there still was some acetone and some Al in it but it worked and it worked well, this mix is something that I will definately do some real testing on. This is actually the first mix that meets my demands that I have for a mix to be declared a "standard" mixture on my list of explosives that I use.

It's cap sensitive, chep as hell, easy to prepare and safe.

Does anyone have any idea of how long it can be stored?
As long as it doesn't start decomposing in storage it can be prepared/loaded and then put into storage in different weights, the mixture would most likely settle and self compress during storage but that would easily be solved by shaking the charge before use.

<a href="http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/160g_AN-wax-acetone_Al.JPG" target="_blank">http://w1.478.telia.com/~u47804009/E&W/160g_AN-wax-acetone_Al.JPG</a>

I don't have any pics of the detonation since i forgot to set the flash to night-mode on the camera.

[ShockWave]

Kinepak wrote:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"> Yesterday, I successfully detonated a 50lb bag of AN Coated/Prilled Fertilizer with kinepak as my booster charge. I simply added 1gallon of diesel to the 50lb bag which I let soak for about 4 hours, and then put the kinepak in the center of the bag, and I videoed it for you guys to see, so just go to my FTP link, and then pub-explosives-9-7-02, and you will see the movie, it was very fucking intense, to say the least. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">If 50lb AN is about 25KG AN and we must use 4-6% Fuel Oil, then we must add 1250gram of Fuel Oil, you used about 3 times the normal ratio, I would say that is way overfueled, but it worked good, then why not.

At this moment i'm busy with mixing AN-FO, I normally use 4%, but why shouldn't I use much more since kinepak had a very succesfull detonation? :confused: :confused:

[Anthony]

Over fueling reduces sensitivity and increases detonation failure rate.

50lb is actually less than 25kg (22.68kg), so for the standard 4.5% ratio would require 1020gm of diesel. With a SG of 0.89 this equates to 1146ml.