I have a question - If I have some 33% Ammonium Nitrate, probably a bit sensibilized with diesel or pertoleum - could I set it off using a Primer or Heart-Load made of ordinary Nitro Celluose Gun powder? I could use any common Grain, preferably one that isn't dead-pressed easily. But would it be strong/fast enough?

Well, what exactly do you mean by 33% AN??? Is it the NPK 33-0-0 fetilizer? Then your AN is pretty pure and the 33% just indicates the nitrogen content by weight. If it only has 33% AN content than I would say you have to purify it.

I don't think that simple gun powder det would set that off. You will need something stronger. About 100g APAN should do the job pretty well...

By the way, it wasn't the best idea to open a new topic on such a basic question with such a low post counter. If you had done a search I am pretty sure you would have found what you were looking for.

Make a search. You can detonate it with APAN for example, and detonate APAN with AP.

Smokeless powder contains nitroglycerin and therefore can be detonated. When confined it will simply burn but if you were to set it off with a detonator it would be equivalent in power to TNT. I've never heard of anyone doing it, but I suppose you could try to set off your AN that way or even mix some NC with your AN and then try. However from your post I understand that you are trying to get around making prime exp. and I don't think you can very well do that.

Desmikes, not all smokeless powder has NG in it. Mine for example is only single base = no NG. Although I can get DBSP and TBSP. Hey I just figured out what DBSP's name means woa how slow am I.

Lowery did a side-by-side comparison of SBSP and DBSP initiated with detcord. The DBSP was more poowerful, but the SB almostr certainly detonated too.

If you are trying to avoid making any explosive while making a high explosive device using Ammonium Nitrate and Nitrocellulose as the only chemicals, you will prolly have a hard time. I don't know how much NC you would need to make it go from delfagration to detonation via simple flame ignition, but I bet it would be impractical without a HE detonator. So it sounds like you need a HE detonator. If you didn't want to use any chemistry or anything, you would probably be best off using Mercury Fulminate extracted from many many muzzle loading caps/primers, which is extremely tedious, not particularly safe unless well educated and experienced, and most likely somewhat expensive. You'de have to get at least a couple grams of it and preferably Alliant Bullseye or Alliant Red Dot (Alliant is AKA Hercules) smokeless powders. But most importantly, you need to read here more. I seriously doubt it would work if you aren't somewhat experienced or educated in this field. Either the AN wouldn't be dry enough, or you would put on too much fuel, or you wouldn't have enough confinment or something is bound to happen. Read read read.

Even sulferless black powder will detonate AN.

Have you ever done this yourself? If so then please tell us how, if not do not report something you overheard as truth, /patronizing I doubt that it is possible to set off AN with BP./patronizing

"Even sulferless black powder will detonate AN."

Theoretically seen if you use several hundret kilos of Black Powder you can reach a deflagration to detonation transition. If you souround your small hill of PB with several tons of AN you can reach detonation.It�s pretty simple if you have all that stuff lying around :D .

That reminded me of an accident that happened in Germany a while back...
Oppau, Germany, Sept. 21, 1921. The biggest chemical explosion in German history occurred in a warehouse about 50 miles south of Frankfurt when workers used dynamite to pry loose 4000 tons of caked ammonium nitrate fertilizer. The blast killed 561 people and levelled houses four miles away

Took me a while to find the ref - the net is full of disasters involving large piles of AN!

Its even dumber than trying to remove a whale carcass from a beach by using dynamite.
Whale Demolition (http://perp.com/whale/) I'm sure most have seen this, but for those that haven't ...

BP might be able to get AN to detonate... somewhere, someone (can't remember who) described how AN could be set off by putting it in a metal tank, and then filling the voids with fuel/air mixture. Igniting the fuel/air mixture was sufficient, with good confinement, to detonate the AN.
Just replace the fuel/air with BP.

I believe that any AN needs to be sensitised before it can explode. For this, I suggest some sort of oil (petrol works well) and some sort of primary. For your primary, I would recommend something really sensitive but still fairly powerful, like nitroglycerin or AP. I have never tried AN as an explosive, though, so I wouldn't know for sure.

After doing a search, I found these:
http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115&highlight=ammonium+nitrate

http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2733&highlight=ammonium+nitrate

http://www.roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2708&highlight=ammonium+nitrate

They may give you some starting ideas :).

NG isn't a primary.

I believe the post was by rjche, and the AN was contained in a steel gas cylinder pressurised with oxygen and propane, buried several feet down and intiated with a glow plug.

Ah, found the thread:

http://roguesci.org/theforum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=97