Re: PYRO:Re: Pyro freaks (was Re: TWINKLE, TWINKLE)

James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Tue, 24 Dec 1996 17:39:52 -0800


>> >(Being a cautious person, I dislike experiments that are intended to go
>> >BOOM. But I'm still proud of my utterly insane magnesium-manganese
>> >dioxide-potassium chlorate mixture)
>
>We used magnesium/potassium permanganate back then, before progressing to
>ammonia nitrate-containing mixes. We made potassium chlorate from sodium
>chlorate by mixing solutions of a commercial defoliant (80% sodium
>chlorate) with potassium chloride. We also made aceton peroxide and
>nitrogen trijodide &c&c.

Ammonium nitrate works well (9 out of 10 terrorists prefer...), but almost
never detonates completely, and takes a really strong trigger to set it off.
One of my favorite composites was packed ammonium nitrate soaked with
nitromethane. Much easier to detonate and TNT range performance. Acetone
peroxide makes a decent primary explosive for use in detonators, but is a
little unsafe, like virtually all organic peroxides. My favorite homemade
primary was HMTD (also an organic peroxide). Very powerful, pretty stable,
and made completely from over-the-counter chemicals. Only negative was that
it chemically decomposed on contact with aluminum I believe.

We used to have fun with nitrogen triiodide. We would make large batch
suspended in water, and then scatter the black precipitate in buildings and
malls while it was still wet. We would then watch people's reactions as the
particles would spontaneously explode as it dried or people stepped on them.
Good clean fun.

Quite frankly, I am surprised I never got in trouble for doing all this
stuff as a young teenager.

-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com