So I recently acquired some Grant's Stump Remover. Alas, the contents came in little pellets so I need some way of converting them to powder. As far as I know, without getting into ugly reactions there are two ways:
1) Dissolve in water, boil/evaporate off water
2) Crush

My question is how shock/pressure sensitive is potassium nitrate? For instance, is it safe to gently crush *one* pellet with a hammer to get a bit of powder? I just want a small amount to test, and I don't want to have to wait for a lot of water to evaporate...

It's about as sensitive as a clod of dirt.

Unless you have it mixed with aluminum and sulfur, you could crush it with a hammer and not have a problem.

Personally, I wouldn't go near the shit, people have been known to lose hands just by looking at it!


Seriously, what the fuck are you doing making things without knowing the mechanics by which they operate?

this thread has the bombshock seal of approval!

lol it's about as sensitive as a wet piece of paper srsly... learn some periodic trends!

edit: you seem to be somewhat intelligent... so I'm somewhat disappointed by your lack of UTFSE.

I didn't think it was shock sensitive, and the web seemed to confirm this with a lack of articles that mention potassium nitrate being shock sensitive. However, I had read something about it decomposing somewhere, and I figured that it would be much better to ask y'all before going and smashing it with a hammer. Sorry for the newb question, and thanks for not flaming me too badly (yet).

I know it is used to oxidize a fuel like aluminum or charcoal, I just wasn't sure whether it could rapidly decompose by itself. If it makes you feel any less worried about my neighbors, I'm not gonna be doing anything stupid like making pipe bombs. I'll most likely only do KNO3 + sugar, although sometime in the future I might make a tiny bit of black powder, and perhaps even some flash, which I'll put it in a metal container so if it blows up by accident it won't be able to hurt anyone, and I'll store it next to a van de graaf generator so if anyone tries to steal it they'll get shocked!!!!111

But seriously, if I err it will be on the side of caution.

Good. Yeah, KNO3 is fine.

The only thing I'd think of reccomending would be a dust mask, if you're grinding up a big amount (which is just fine).

KNO3 is about as dangerous as that huge dog I saw yesterday, taking a nap in the doorway to a cafe.
aid dog was about as dangerous as a rolled up carpet: he collected dust and you could trip over him.

erm... it tastes like shit... so... yeah...