SpudFiles

I'll chime in here ....Magnum, DO NOT fool with trying to nitrate ANYTHING, especially glycerine. The chemicals used (I assume you know what they are) are highly corrosive, fairly hard to get, and not cheap.

Also, hasn't this discussion gone too far already into high explosives no-no land??.

starman wrote:Also, hasn't this discussion gone too far already into high explosives no-no land??.

Good point, I'd forgotten that. Discussion of this is against forum rules:

Solid propellant: Any substance containing all the chemical elements required to enable sustained combustion without the presence of additional oxidizers.
1. For this purpose, nitroglycerine, though liquid, would qualify.

Where's a grumpy mod when you need one?

Nitroglycerine production factories are usually situated a few miles offshore, if that means anything to you. The resources required to produce and store even a tiny amount of it with any degree of safety would run up thousands of dollars. Also, you have no idea what you're doing, so don't even try it. They'll find the spudguns in whatever's left of your property, put two and two together, come up with -5, and decide that the whole hobby should be banned outright.

Why did this ridiculous discussion even start? The basic points are:
Vaporised alcohol is a decent, if somewhat tricky fuel
Glycerine on its own isn't going to do anything other than complicate things further
Putting concentrated acid (especially nitric) in anything remotely resembling a normal spudgun is going to result in a very expensive puddle of paste
Putting any quantity of HE in anything remotely resembling a normal spudgun is not a method of enhancing power of said spudgun, it is a method of demolishing it

Go ahead and use alcohol as a fuel, but if you're going to kill yourself, find less creative ways to do it.

Nice recap DYI. Now, lets all move on.

If you didn't heed my advice, and ended up killing yourself, I would not be terribly remorseful.