What is the most powerful explosive you can make at home with commonly available materials?
Fuel-air explosive.
FAE has a wider reach but not anything as powerful as ANFO or nitro.
And… why do you want to know? :dubious:
Just tell him which, not how to.
[Moderator Instructions]
I agree. Let’s not give instructions in how to make it.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Just curious. Also I would clarify I mean most powerful per volume.
Ammonium nitrate bombs like the one used for the Oklahoma City attack are fairly easy to make (but still much easier to make a dud don’t if know what you are doing) and scale up to indefinite size. The limit is how much material you can obtain and the fact that buying large quantities of the amount needed for a very large bombs will trigger warning flags if you don’t have a good reason for needing it (own a large farm basically).
Based on the OP’s clarification, I don’t think an ammonium nitrate bomb would be in the running based on volume or weight. You need literally hundreds to thousands of pounds of ingredients that can fill up a vehicle to get a large explosion.
And, at that volume, they’re not commonly available.
I’d wager that those guys at the Boston Marathon were near the upper end of a man portable device.
Maybe some homemade thermite?
Thermite’s not an explosive.
Disagree.
FAE is incredibly powerful. Both the MOAB and FOAB are FAE.
^
You’re probably thinking of another bomb. MOAB/GBU43B is filled with 8.5 tonnes of H6, which is equivalent to 11 tonnes of TNT. H6 is a mix of RDX, TNT and aluminum powder. Don’t know what the Russian FOAB contains but it’s probably a high explosive, not fuel air.
Based on availability, it’s probably ANNM, with ANFO lagging behind. Both are common commercial explosives and are relatively easy to make. Ammonium Nitrate is explosive all by itself under certain circumstances (the West, TX explosion and Texas City disasters are examples).
I hope this sates your curiosity. Do yourself a favor and let it stop there.
Wikipedia describes both MAOB and FOAB as thermobaric and lists FAE as another term for thermobaric:
I admit I may have oversimplified in lumping them together.
It’s is right in that MOAB has aluminum powder, so it needs ambient oxygen. But it’s not propane/butane gas like the usual fuel air weapon.
Not only will I tell you about a powerful explosive, I’ll provide the exact recipe. USE WITH CAUTION.
1 cup dry dog food.
1 hard boiled egg.
A dash of meat drippings
Mix ingredients in a bowl, feed to my dog. In about 2 to 4 hours, everyone in the home will not be dead but definitely will yearn to be.
How does TATP and other organic peroxides compare (instability notwithstanding) to ammonium nitrate explosives?