Reply #5: when I was researching one of my books, I

[ChairmanAgnostic]

used readily available materials (most of which i already had), and created an explosive. It was unstable, and if you wanted to, you could place the crystals on a sidewalk, causing great sound effects when people simply walked by. In larger amounts (tough to do because it was so unstable), it was a viable explosive. I learned many things by doing this. It is damned simple to make a bomb. It is also easy to fuck things up and hurt yourself, even if you are careful. (especially if the raw materials are too old or are of questionable quality).

One thing about many explosives. They need a blast to explode. Mere fire only burns them. In VietNam troops used C4 to cook their food. This was the safest way to get rid of all that stuff, especially the dangerous, unstable crap.