ANxx Compositions

[kbk]

ANxx compositions are very common explosives. AN is ammonium nitrate, which can be found in instant cold packs at the pharmacy or in fertilizer. The only ANxx comp. I have experience with is ANAP, it is a mix of AN and AP 50/50 or 90/10, 90/10 requires a blasting cap, AP can be used. Other ANxx comps. include, MEKPAN, ANAl, ANFO, etc.

[Antiklone]

AN + a good sunday paper makes a pretty good smoke device,

ive also heard that AN plus coal dust soaked on some cotton twine makes a really hot burning fuse.

[kbk]

How do you mix it with the paper? Usually you mix it with a liquid or another powdered solid or something...

[THErAPIST]

the smokebomb that was reffered to:

1 part ammonium nitrate by volume (in prill form)
2 parts water

1.)when all of the ammonium nitrate has dissolved, you soak newspaper in it.
2.)you hang the paper up to dry. it's a very large possibility that you will have to dry it completely with a good hair dryer. the dry treated paper will be stiffer than regular paper, will feel thicker, and will have a more rough surface texture.
3.) once it's dry you store it in a ziplock bag to keep the moisture out.
4.) when you have 4 to 6 pages of treated paper (a page would be about 2 feet long by 1 foot wide) you fold them all in half long ways (the page is now 6 inches wide and 2 feet long)
5.) stack them ontop of one another, and roll it REALLY tightly
6.) wrap some thread around the roll of paper pretty tightly to keep it rolled up
7.) hold it in the middle (not on the end you'll get burned)
hold a flame under one end till it catches fire a bit and starts to spit smoke out slowly
8.) drop it on the ground so that when the smoke starts blasting out of both ends you don't get burned from the flame inside the paper roll (this is why you dont hold it on the opposite end)
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ANNM (ammonium nitrate and NitroMethane) is the most brisant and destructive of the AN mixtures that are anything near common. adding 5% fine aluminum powder makes the detonation velocity a bit faster. it's used as an improvised replacement for C-4 because the velocity is only slightly lower than C-4

ANSOY (ammonium nitrate and soy oil) is another mixture that's a little slower than ANFO, it heaves things well like anfo does

ANAL (ammonium nitrate and Aluminum powder) is a higher heat but still slow explosive. detonates a it faster than ANFO if memory serves me

ANNC (ammonium nitrate crystals surrounded with a layer of nitrocellulose). (something i came up with but i'm sure someone else has used it at some point..) Detonates faster than ANAL but slower than ANNM. 27 grams has blown a 6 inch tree to shreds

ammonium dynamite. (ammonium nitrate powder with usually 20% or less of nitroglycerin in it as a sensatizer. the AN serves as a stabalizer for the NG) Detonates slower than ANNM, but not by much. a couple hundred meters per second slower in velocity i think. i could be wrong on that and the percentage of NG in there, so don't hold that one to me.

NOTE: If anyone can prove me wrong on any of this, or if i'm incorrect at some point, correct me please. I hate misinformation and would like to keep things accurate

[fuCKYou]

i'll have to try that smoke thing, doesn't sound very hard. have you tried it before? does it work good?

[THErAPIST]

Yes ive tried it, and yes it works. Quite well too.

Gotta make sure you wear gloves though.. Ammonium nitrate gets into cuts, and under yoru fingernails, and into any crack in your hands that it can, and it hurts like a bitch. Also if you don't have the paper as dry as it can possibly be, it's either a pain in the ass to light, or it just WON'T light because it sucks moisture out of the air. Enough moisture to make the paper wet again.

[evilwalnut]

I made "ammonium dynamite" nearly as you described, but with 13% NG.

In the tests, two sets of 30g fine AN powder was soaked, and mixed with ~3.9ml of NG.

The first charge was primed with a 7g pressed mercury fulminate charge and yielded impressive results. To my knowledge it was fully detonated and left an impressive crater about 4 feet in diameter.

The second charge was primed with 6.5g loosely packed lead picrate and detonated with similar results.

Very powerful mixture, and potentially over-primed, but im not sure the 20% you describe, THErAPIST, is entirely necessary. Any insight?

[THErAPIST]

Dynamite comes in different strengths for different purposes in mining and the like. 20% may seem a bit much, but that's commonly as low as the strength goes I believe. It can also go up to as high as 80%. The higher the percentage the better shattering effect the dynamite has. this being the case 20% powder is what would be used to blast a stump from the ground because it has more OOMPH, pushing power. 60% is what would be used to blow a stump off at ground level instead of out of the ground (by strapping it to the side of the stump). 80% on the other hand would be used for blasting large boulders from the ground because it would fragment the rock a bit better and make it easier to clear out..

Everything stated above is atleast how regular ole sawdust & NG dynamite is. From what I've read though ammonium dynamite is largely the same way as sawdust stabalized NG when it comes to percentages.

[evilwalnut]

Ah, I never learned much about demolition, but the stepping up of percentages makes sense in terms of shattering versus pushing.

I think I've mostly left the HE phase, fireworks are much more rewarding and can be shown to the whole family. The firework production process looks more like an art studio rather than an ad-hoc meth lab...not to discredit the tweakers. <3 Tina

[THErAPIST]

I agree with you on fireworks being more of an art and the like. I would MUCH rather make somehting that everyone can enjoy without the risk of being perforated by either flying rock or debris. And I'll be damned if you don't really have to know what you're doing to make a shell that can make even other pyros ooh and ahh about it.

The only reason I know about dynamite percentages is because I've had people ask me to stump their yard for them. Since I had no clue how to do it right I went and studied.

[gbu-36]

Just wonderin, but what is in the smoke that the AN smoke bombs put off, smells allmost like nitrous oxide does...

[THErAPIST]

you mean the news paper soaked in AN/ h20 and rolled up smoke bombs? i dunno really don't know but it doesn't smell bad and it for some reason hangs in the air longer than most smokes.

[death11284]

Yeah you kind of forgot to mention the most common AN charges, ANFO.

ANFO is ammonium nitrate fuel oil, basically the fuel acts as a polymer and activates the AN, making it cap sensitive. As a rule of thumb it's 6-8% kerosene or any other "fuel oil", I usually use an AP primary with an APAN booster because it takes quiet a bit to set this shit off.

In general what I use isn't necessarily ANFO but is a mixture of AN/Xylene, I usually add about 9-10% xylene because that gives you a bit of extra oxygen (less chance of a failure to detonate..).

Your cap needs to be around 5g AP and your booster needs to be a whopping 30-50g to set it off. Another thing I like to do just to get a little more kick out of it is add a small amount of ETN (~5%) to be SURE it will go off.

In my personal opinion AN explosives really just don't perform as well and as reliably as say RDX/PETN/ETN.

[W4RGASM]

Anyone who says that AN comps aren't reliable isn't making themr ight. For the exact reason, they are used for commercial mining and rockface blasting; they are so stable and safe and nearly impossible to detonate without a sensitizer or extreme conditions. Even then, it's touchy, if it's not perfectly set-up.

[death11284]

I just don't like the size of the booster generally required for AN mixes. Having that much of any peroxide scares me to the shaking faze.

I've recently started using plasticized/confined ETN as a primary, and I must say, it's amazing.

[THErAPIST]

PETN and ETN are certainly "the shit". It just comes down to having the stuff to make both. Was only able to get the things for PETN once. The pentaerythritol is fucking elusive. Erythritol on the other hand is a bit easier to get. Still had to order it though. No health food places around me have ever had it

As for booster charges, adding 5% 600 mesh or higher aluminum to the AN will sensatize it a bit. I've read that mixing in sulfur will also sensatize it, but I've also read about spontaneous ignition of An/s mixtures. I don't know about the accuracy of that writing though. Sulfur is in the list of incompatibilities when it comes to AN

[death11284]

Vitanet has pretty good deals on erythritol, I buy battery acid and boil it down. AN I get from cold packs because everyone around here knows what KNO3 and AN are. It is really cheap to make in bulk, it is certainly "the shit".