I've been thinking a lot lately, about the relative pricing, usability and ease of production of various explosive. There's that old argument that says

If it's cheap, it isn't safe
If it's safe, it isn't easy
If it's easy, it isn't cheap.

That sorta thing. AP is cheap, easy but not safe. What are some ways we can make it safer?

I've been reading extensively on this, but there are a few facts I need some help with.

What's the minimum size of xtal AP needs to be nasty and unsafe? I know a larger xtal will break easier, please don't tell me it needs to be monomolecular to be safe or something. Because I've had the idea of dissolving AP into acetone, and then saturating an acidified semi-rigid polyurethane foam in the solution (some of these foams are soluble, others seem to be not so) then evaping the acetone off leaving tiny crystals of AP in seperate cells so they don't self-det or contact each other, but the foam is such a low density to allow easy shockwave propogation. That way, you have a large block of light-weight, insensitive explosive that can simply have a fuse or cap taped to it at any point to initiate.

There are explosives that are cheap, easy, and safe... but they generally don't have much synthesis information or the person who wants them doesn't have the drive to go through with the synth. Or the person doesn't know about them.

AP is flawed in being a peroxide... AND its a primary... its only good for caps... and thats just barely... Adding some foam to it would take away most of its power. Fillers are attractive when its another explosive that dosesn't take away much power wise and the gains in stability are good.

Lead azide is really sensitive, if the crystals grow too big in an aqueous solution while its being prepared, they can det. Dextrinated lead azide solves this problem somewhat. However you don't see dextrinated lead azide being used in anything other than caps... and thats rarely. Desensitizine AP to make it safer for caps is great, but don't take it beyond that, it just isn't made for it.

There is an irish saying... something along the lines of... "Put a dress on a pig, an its still a pig."

Exposed surface area like with meal BP vs gran. BP for burn rate works well with alot of other materials. Ever consider granulated whistle mix? It should be reasonably safe. Tis simple. Tis somewhat cheap. Or you coudl always press it and det it. That shouldn't be beyond the possibilty of any home pyro.

What about hydrazines or azides? All you need is ammonia or urea, hypochlorite, NaOH, and H2SO4 (HCl optional before final HS precipitation w/H2SO4) for hydrazine sulfate... then you just need NaOH, a nitrite salt, HCl, and an alcohol like isopropyl... Its pretty simple. Then you can have various azides for caps... or what not. 5-ATZ isn't far off.

Urea nitrate? Nitrourea? Easy as pie, cheap, and safe. Same goes for HDN.

Yeah, I've worked with or experimented with a lot of different things, HDN was nifty, never got around to azides, nitrourea was fun... AP, though, is just sort of my devil. It bugs me that it's such a cunt and so many people hurt themselves working with it. I just want to figure out a way to make it safer for noobs and vets.

Ok, the better part of me has been telling me not to post this for fear of someone trying it and hurting themselves, but I'll post it because this is such a direct question.

I do not condone experimenting with this, but several years ago when I was playing with AP i did experiment with a method of stabilizing it that seemed to work. What I did was to, PAINSTAKINGLY, dissolve milligram amounts of AP in liquid paraffin wax. I did this slowly until I reached an approximate 50-50 mixture by volume. After letting it cool for a day, I tested it for sensitivity by doing things I wouldn't normally do to AP: dropping it, cutting it, heating it, ect. No go. I even tried to light it with a match flame from afar: it sizzled and cracked, but again, no go. Finally, I molded some around a length of visco, and that actually did take off and violently flared up without a big bang or shattering power much like NC. Can't say if it was a detonation or a deflagration because it was only a gram or so. I meant to try and detonate it as a secondary with another primary, but I never got around to it.

I don't suggest anyone try it because it's not worth the time, effort, or risk. And, as most members will point out, there are better primary choices. However, this is one method I tried that seemed to work.

Liquid parrafin wax from like a candle? Or tiki torch?

I mostly think you mean a candle.. in which case:
I would think that the ash/blank from the fuse acted liek a wick for the wax, and the AP just sped up its burning... IE you can melt wax, but it won't easily burn without a wick of some sort to greatly increase the surface area. Thats probably what the fuse/ashes did.

Thats very interesting, and yeah dangerous, trying the same thing, except with candle wax dissolved in boiling naptha or something, then cooled, AP added, and poured out into a pan for the solvent to evaporate might be safer, but im thinking that the AP would either float to the surface or sink to the bottom given enough time... So probably wouldn't work too well.

Mixing it with glues is interesting, but the drying time sucks. Resins would be cool except for the fact that peroxides are generally whats used to cure them.

APNC works, but it takes time to dry fully.

What would be ideal would be some sort of plastic that melts at a very low temperature (hot water bath) and can still be pourable when it has around 70% AP by weight... The closest i can see getting soemthing like that... ish... would be petroleum jelly thinned with parrifin oil... but it would be oily and messy and not plastic-like.

Heating up modeling plastic clay like sculpy and adding a bit of parrifin oil or something, then adding AP could somewhat work, but you wouldn't be able to get much in... Extracting the binder from it or gum or sticky tac, then using that would work somewhat... Just like with C4... ish... Swaney did some tests i htink, but not with AP... NG possibly.

If you keep solvents in the stuff though the AP crystals have the possibility of growing liek they did on Tzar when she left APNC laquer un touched for a long time. That was scarry.

Adding AP to a eutectic explosive melt would possibly work, but it would be really damn dangerous. Just like adding it to wax, except hot high explosive wax. It might oxidize something and decompose leading to a det of hot liquid (high density) HEs... that would be bad...

If you co-precipitated it with a compound with similar solubility, then mixed it however, it would be even better so long as the crystals still stay small.

Search for low melting point things that are somewhat like wax.... so that it can be easily melted in a warm water bath, and is very fluid at that temperature, so it can hold alot of compound. Then can cool off to a wax or plastic like texture. Something that AP won't decompose with would be best.

Throwing out ideas and blah...

Edit: Candlewax/solid bacon cooking grease crap... melted... probably melts at a lower temp that the wax alone. Cools off to probably very weird texture waxy solid. Vary proportions for best?

I've done some experiments with it, and I've found a few safer ways.

First is recrystallized caps. Instead of pressing AP into a tube, I dissolved it in acetone, and let the saturated solution evaporate. The result was a dense packing of crystals which detonated nicely. It seemed to be comparable to a packed cap, but keep in mind I probably don't pack mine as hard as everyone else.

Second is mixed with plastics. I dissolved AP in nitrocellulose, polystyrene, and acrylic. APAN is a common mixture, but it really sucks. The NC adds to the reaction a bit, but it always dries with lots of air bubbles containing bits of AP. It's not dense enough to det properly, it flakes apart easily, and it's not very waterproof.

Polystyrene (extracted from the clear part of CD cases) worked a bit better. It dried solid, and detted fine. It's rather brittle though.

Acrylic is my favourite. It dries solid, durable, and is such a sexy clear polymer to work with. Completely waterproof too.

Lastly is moulding the AP plastic into convenient blasting caps. The easiest way it to put the igniter in a blob and let it dry, but the elegant way to do it is pour the plastic into a microtiter plate like a muffin tin, and insert the igniters into the wells. The result is a small waterproof electrical primary that detonates with a sharp little POP.

Now that sounds like a plan.

Hmmm... acrylic...

Next experiment:
Explosive paint!

Heheh. I jest.

He speaks the truth.

oh spatula, that's fascinating about your Acrylic eutectic mixture.

I think a tutorial on making it would be a great contribution to your site (yes, I am trying to bribe you

Technically its not a eutectic.

AP is a fairly powerful explosive, for the ease of creation, but very sensitive. Personally, I no longer use it. The few extra dollars I spent on some sodium azide were worth it. I'm working on azo-clarthate caps as well as straight lead azide. Use 0.5g of recrystallized MHN in addition, and those caps will detonate anything with gusto.

If I were you, I would simply drop it. Is your hand worth an extra 10 dollars? 100 dollars?

It would be nice to go up to a primary and say "hey, you, stop exploding unless I want you to explode." But it doesn't work that way. The only way to keep AP remotely safe is to synth/use it in quantities so small that even an accidental det can't cause much damage.

None of the methods mentioned here have been reliably tested, and I don't think they ever will be, nor will any method of "keeping AP safe." IMO, damage control is the key.