not including dynamite what do you think is
the most useful explosive?

Dynamite and nitroglycerin containing explosives are a dying breed. Blasters are now using ANFO, AN water gels, and AN slurries more than ever. Occassionaly they are detonated with dynamite, but usually a PETN booster. The reason being is that such explosives are much more stable, harder to detonate, water resistant, and much cheaper. They are also not prone to sympathetic detonation which is when one explosive detonates from a nearby explosion caused by a different shot. They are also not sensitive to electric shock, flame, or heat. Where a rifle bullet may detonate dynamite it will most likely not detonate AN based or military explosives (which is why military dynamite is not composed of NG). There is only one plant in the US still making NG-dynamite and it will probably be shut down in the recent years coming.

As far as for personal use in improvised explosives, AN-based explosives are the easiest, safest, and cheapest to manufacture. The downside is having to know how to make working cap to get detonations and the extreme dangers of doing so.

Just curious, whats the smallest/biggest anfo charge any one has ever dreamt of doing?? I once dreamt of a small 1lb propane canister full, could been a "real nightmare," But was not.

What do you mean by 'most useful'? It really depends a lot on what you are gonna use it for. When it comes to price/power efficiency ratio, AN and slurry will beat anything into the deck. It is nearly worthless for external charges, though, and since I guess few of the readers of this board are into serious demolitions (except for Dr. Murdok :P), I think that will be the most common application. When determining an explosive's efficiency when detonated externally, the most important factor is the explosive's brisance (detonation velocity). In that department there are, as far as I know, no practically applicable explosives that beat Octogene (HMX), with Pentrite (PETN) as a close second. Those explosives are, due to their volatile nature, seldom encountered in their pure form, and appear mostly as components of composite explosives (Pentole, Octole and Hexole are mixes between Pentrite / TNT, Octogene / TNT, and Hexogene / TNT respectively), and these explosives are generally more useful because they are safer to handle, less sensitive to moisture and so on. As I said, it all depends upon what you mean by 'useful'.

As for big ANFO charges, this is the biggest goddamn explosion I've ever seen: During my dems course, I witnessed 500kg (half a ton) of dynolite going off at a tunnel construction site. We were about 150 metres from ground zero, protected by sandbags, and the blast left me breathless, literally.

~Snake

P.S: The list of explosives may be a bit dated, as it is a long time since I did my dems course, and most of the stuff I've been doing has involved old equipment. Someone may in the meantime have come up with more brisant mixes which don't appear on the list.

The most useful low explosive, of course, is black powder.

The largest charge I've done was about 1lb of a mixture of AP and AN, detonated by and AP+smokeless powder cap. It was done out in the country at a buddy's house. We put the container in an old 25gallon woodedn flower pot full of dirt it was a good 300+ feet from the house. The explosion removed much of the dirt from the flower pot and splintered most of the wood. The shock damaged the house as well, breaking 2 windows.

Another charge of the same mixture was a near mishap, though it was about 1/2 pound. People were around when I was lighting fuse that one of the guys had given me. It was a much faster burning fuse, very much faster than I anticipated. By the time I got turned to run it was half way burnt (it was 12" of fuse). In about three strides the device detonated. No one got hurt, but the explosion layed me on the ground face first.

Another large charge I've done was a pint of AP and of course and AP cap. It went off with a sharp crack noise that was very loud. I don't recommend trying this because AP can detonate by the weight of AP on top of it. In other words the pressure exerted from AP on top of a small layer of AP can cause the lower layer to detonate, in turn detonating the rest of the AP.

When doing shots I would always carry things in small amounts, make several trips or have another carry some as well. Also nothing was compressed, it was carried loosely.

I do have to agree with snakeyes as far as demolitions. I don't much about that subject so correct me if I'm wrong. I pretty much know that two types of charges are used, a cutting charge (shaped charges) and kicker charges used to blast or further break the piece that was cut.

I'm sure a plasticized AP explosive could do the job in a pinch if one could somehow improvise the proper timing of detonations. It's hard enough to figure out a cap that will detonate an improvised explosive reliably yet alone devising delays.

I don't recommend anyone making explosives period yet alone ones that require nitrations. Unless you have the proper facility you will be nitrating impurities as well. It's these impurities that make the nitrating process extremely dangerous in the home lab. Toluene, for example, being a very good organic solvent the possibilities of what you could be making unintentionally are endless.

If you guys do decide to nitrate at least don't nitrate any material that is a good solvent. This excludes any chemical that carries a benzene ring, alcohols, and ethers, and ketones.

quote:

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Originally posted by SnakeEye:
During my dems course, I witnessed 500kg (half a ton) of dynolite going off at a tunnel construction site. We were about 150 metres from ground zero, protected by sandbags, and the blast left me breathless, literally.

~Snake

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Do you work for a demolition company?

what is dynolite?

and yes, either black powder or flash powder has got to be the most useful low explosives.

RDX based explosives have been a godsent recently. theyve got to be the best cutting explosives, if you can get them.

how would i go about nitrating some thing, do i just mix it with a nitrate?

No, but when I did my military demolitions training, we were taken to a civilian construction site to learn about and witness large scale rock blasting.

Dynolite is a brand name for an Ammonium Nitrate compound, made by Dynamit Nobel.

~Snake

There are two basic ways of nitrations, but I won't go into to detail.

1. Nitrating with mixed acid
2. Using reactions that switch the -NO3
from a nitrate to the chemical you want
the -NO3('s) to be on

oh so a single replacement reaction, basicly.