Detonation of secondary explosives without primary explosives
Discuss this here. There was a thread on zoklet about it, but the people there are too paranoid/lazy to be creative so nothing good resulted from it. I decided to post this since LordWorm didn't. Considering the nature of this(explosives/legality), it's understandable there aren't many people willing to experiment with it or share their knowledge.
I've been wondering if yellow powder or acetate/nitrate mixes would work well for initiating something like ETN. I think they would if flash would. But you can't really tell if you got full detonation or detonation at all unless you do some tests with it. I think having a main charge of ANFO should help determine whether it's a good way to initiate secondaries, since ANFO is not very sensitive to detonation, so if it can detonate ANFO then it's good. I don't have the money to test any of this safely, so I'll leave it to the other people.
I've been wondering if yellow powder or acetate/nitrate mixes would work well for initiating something like ETN. I think they would if flash would. But you can't really tell if you got full detonation or detonation at all unless you do some tests with it. I think having a main charge of ANFO should help determine whether it's a good way to initiate secondaries, since ANFO is not very sensitive to detonation, so if it can detonate ANFO then it's good. I don't have the money to test any of this safely, so I'll leave it to the other people.
Comments
As far as I know, fulminating powder (AKA Yellow powder) will burn slowly unless heated beyond the sulfur's melting point, at which point it is capable of detonation. Might be worth looking into, though ETN will apparently exhibit similar behaviour when heated under confinement.
Golden powder would probably be fairly useless, as in my experience it doesn't burn much faster than BP.
So far, the only reliable NPED detonator I have tested utilizes pressed ETN and very fast flash powder (KClO3/Mg), inside a closed copper pipe with electrical ignition. This does consistently produce a high order detonation of the base charge, and is capable of initiating small Ammonal charges.
I've also heard from a friend that Rcandy mixed with magnesium fillings will generate sufficient heat to cause ETN to undergo DDT under confinement. I haven't tested this yet, but he claims it's 90% reliable at initiating ANNMAl.
I'll post more on both methods later.
2.0g methanol recrystallized ETN was mixed with 0.1g 625 mesh Al powder, and pressed into a ~6mm diameter tube rolled from 5 layers of Al foil. The ends were crimped shut, and it was secured upright in a ~10mm ID copper pipe, which had one end crimped shut. 0.5g of flash powder was loaded into the internal void, then the end was crimped shut around a steel wire to leave an opening for a fuse. The wire was removed and a length of thin Chinese visco inserted.
The device was intended to work somewhat like an implosion type fusion bomb. The flash powder would surround the Al foal wrapped ETN, and upon ignition, produce large amounts of heat and pressure, inducing the high order detonation we've seen from heated Al foil wrapped ETN.
The resulting explosion ripped a large hole in the thin steel plate it was placed on, so it appears to have been a successful detonation. More testing will need to be done to verify consistency.
I wanted to film the test, but there's something rattling around inside my camera battery, and it won't supply power. However, here's a video of a similar, however crude device. I believe he simply wraps ETN in Al foil and heats it with burning wax.
In terms of mechanical detonation, there are a variety of simple ways. One of the most obvious is shooting a target, such as ETN, with a fairly sturdy metal backing. From the detonating place, run det cord to the booster on the main charge. Another funny thought would be simply having a drop test rig that you could trigger remotely, wouldn't be hard at all. Just have some ETN/other secondary on a drop test platform with excessive weight and height. Once again, run det cord from the drop test rig.
I probably wouldn't use either of those means, but they are kinda amusing in their simplicity and safety.
As far as electrical detonation goes, I'm pretty sure EBW isn't as far out of reach as people might think, tho I'm no expect on the topic, from what I've seen of EBW patents and designs everything is available to an amateur. If I were still active in pyro I would probably make it one of my main goals to perfect an EBW system to share with the community... I think pyrotrons made one... I'll have to go check into that.
While I'm throwing around funny ideas, what about microwave detonation? Microwaves will very reliably detonate a whole wide variety of explosives, since they act to directly stimulate molecules. If you had some spare microwaves laying around you could figure out a way to trigger one remotely with your detonator inside it, be hilarious if nothing else.
But for reals, remote electrical detonation is the way to go. In my case I used secure RF detonation, with coded multichannel systems. Besides allowing you to detonate from up to 2000m away, it lets you create precisely programmed timing delays between multiple detonations. If you already had a system like that set up, it would be easy to adapt it into a multichannel EBW system once you got the EBW part figured out.
Imagine this: 2.4GHz radio system with a receiver and power supply placed 50ft from the microwave, connected to the power switch with long wires. Foil wrapped ETN inside the microwave, with a length of detcord running out the side to the main charge. Oh what a sight that would be.
I have a 3 channel 2.4GHz radio system that I'm working on adapting to detonation systems. The channels are secure and immune to interference, and once I figure out an effective way to protect the receiver, it will be connected to the EBW system I'm (slowly) working on.