Ok, so we’re back with another mess of homemade Macgyver’d carnage for you guys to think about. This article is going to contain a LOT of information, so make sure you do your homework kiddies. This time around, we’ve got a few rare treats for you. This time, its all about DESTRUCTION!

How to make Black Powder
How to make Thermite
How to make Napalm
How to make Dynamite
How to make C4 (FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES and there are steps left out) :D
Other booby traps for the undead and the unwary living.

How to make Black Powder

Gunpowder, also known since the late 19th century as black powder, is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. Gunpowder can be made just using potassium nitrate and charcoal (or alternatively without charcoal), but without the sulfur (or coal), the powder is not as strong. It burns rapidly, producing a volume of hot gas made up of carbon dioxide, water, and nitrogen, and a solid residue of potassium sulfide. Because of its burning properties and the amount of heat and gas volume that it generates, gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms and as a pyrotechnic composition in fireworks.

Black powder is a granular mixture of:

a nitrate, typically potassium nitrate (KNO3), which supplies oxygen for the reaction;
charcoal, which provides carbon and other fuel for the reaction, simplified as carbon (C);
sulfur (S), which, while also serving as a fuel, lowers the temperature required to ignite the mixture, thereby increasing the rate of combustion
All of these chemicals are commercially available off of EBAY. Yes, thats right, EBAY. I bought 1 lb of KNO3 a while back to make smoke bombs for the 4th of July. Please research on your on for the proper combinations for the best mixture. I can’t do everything for you, ya know. ;D

How to make Thermite/Thermate

Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide, which produces an exothermic oxidation-reduction reaction known as a thermite reaction. If aluminum is the reducing agent it is called an aluminothermic reaction. Most varieties are not explosive, but can create short bursts of extremely high temperatures focused on a very small area for a short period of time. The thermite is simply a mixture of metal, often called the “fuel” and an oxidizer. It’s form of action is thought very simlilar to other fuel-oxidizer mixture like black powder. All you need is Iron Oxide, and Aluminium Oxide, which are also available for purchase off of EBAY. God, you gotta love the internet. Anyway mix them together in a 8:3 ratio (iron oxide:aluminum) in a ratio by weight. Note that the since aluminum is so light, it will appear that it is about a 50-50 mix by volume

Thermate: Its composition by weight is generally 68.7% thermite, 29.0% barium nitrate, 2.0% sulfur and 0.3% binder (such as PBAN). The addition of barium nitrate to thermite increases its thermal effect, produces a larger flame, and significantly reduces the ignition temperature.

All you need to ignite either of these mixtures is a simple child’s sparkler.

This one I was allowed to tell you because civilians are allowed to make and possess thermite. :D

How to make Napalm

We all know some crazy way we heard to make napalm, but here is the real way. The commonly quoted composition is 21% benzene, 33% gasoline (itself containing about 1.0 to 4.0 percent benzene to raise its octane number), and 46% polystyrene. This mixture is difficult to ignite. A reliable pyrotechnic initiator, often based on thermite (for ordinary napalm) or white phosphorus (for newer compositions), must be used. The original napalm usually burned for 15 to 30 seconds while napalm-B can burn for up to 10 minutes. The best way that I have found to produce an easily ignitable, and long burning form of napalm is to take a plastic 5 gallon bucket, set it on the GROUND and fill it 1/4 full with gasoline. You set it on the GROUND to GROUND it out so there are no electrostatic discharges resulting in fume detonation and possibly DEATH. Then, slowly dissolve styrofoam(which is polystyrene) into it until it reaches a “snot like” consistancy. Mix it SLOWLY with a stick of wood. Play with the amount of styrofoam until you get it to burn as long, or as hot as you want it. Using my method, I have had 1 cup burn for 10 minutes, and half of that was after I covered the fire with a layer of dirt in an attempt to put it out. BE VERY CAREFUL.

How to make Dynamite

The industrial manufacturing process often uses a nearly 50:50 mixture of concentrated sulfuric acid and concentrated nitric acid. This can be produced by mixing white fuming nitric acid (quite costly pure nitric acid in which oxides of nitrogen have been removed, as opposed to red fuming nitric acid) and concentrated sulfuric acid. More often, this mixture is attained by the cheaper method of mixing fuming sulfuric acid, also known as oleum, (sulfuric acid containing excess sulfur trioxide) and azeotropic nitric acid (consisting of around 70% nitric acid, the rest being water).

The sulfuric acid produces protonated nitric acid species, which are attacked by glycerin’s nucleophilic oxygen atoms. The nitro group is thus added as an ester C-O-NO2 and water is produced. This is different from an aromatic nitration reaction in which nitronium ions are the active species in an electrophilic attack of the molecules’ ring system.

The addition of glycerin results in an exothermic reaction (i.e., heat is produced), as usual for mixed acid nitrations. However, if the mixture becomes too hot, it results in runaway, a state of accelerated nitration accompanied by the destructive oxidizing of organic materials of nitric acid and the release of very poisonous brown nitrogen dioxide gas at high risk of an explosion. Thus, the glycerin mixture is added slowly to the reaction vessel containing the mixed acid (not acid to glycerin). The nitrator is cooled with cold water or some other coolant mixture and maintained throughout the glycerin addition at about 22 °C (72 °F), much below which the esterification occurs too slowly to be useful. The nitrator vessel, often constructed of iron or lead and generally stirred with compressed air, has an emergency trap door at its base, which hangs over a large pool of very cold water and into which the whole reaction mixture (called the charge) can be dumped to prevent an explosion, a process referred to as drowning. If the temperature of the charge exceeds about 30 °C (86 °F) (actual value varying by country) or brown fumes are seen in the nitrator’s vent, then it is immediately drowned.

Just in case you’re ever dumb enough to try this, you can buy pure glycerin at most pharmacies and buy the acid off of the internet.

Now, it is said you can use sawdust as a stabilizer, BUT YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER DO THIS! It will cause the nitro to immediately explode. You can’t use any kind of plant organic plant matter. You should use diatomaceous earth or nitrocellulose. Wikipedia it. LOL.

How to make C4

C4 is made up of explosives, plastic binder, plasticizer and, usually, marker or odorizing taggant chemicals such as 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane (DMDNB) to help detect the explosive and identify its source. As with many plastic explosives, the explosive in C4 is RDX (cyclonite or cyclotrimethylene trinitramine), which makes up around 91% of C4 by weight. The plasticizer is diethylhexyl (5.3%) or dioctyl sebacate and the binder is usually polyisobutylene (2.1%). Another plasticizer used is dioctyl adipate (DOA). A small amount of SAE 10 non-detergent motor oil (1.6%) is also added.
C4 is manufactured by combining the noted ingredients with binder dissolved in a solvent. The solvent is then evaporated and the mixture dried and filtered. The final material is an off-white solid with a texture similar to modelling clay.

Now, to make C4 you need RDX (91% by weight, btw, its slightly unstable. So be careful!)
To make RDX: RDX can be made by a synthesis of nitric acid and hexamine. Nitric acid is pretty easy to get, so I’ll tell you how to make/get Hexamine.
To make Hexamine: Hexamine is made by a synthesis of formaldehyde and ammonia, but you can find it pre-made in a lot of fuel tablets for camp stoves. Google Esbit fuel tabs, you want the ones made from hexamine, NOT trioxane.

So now, since you’re good and confused, I’ll dumb it down for you.

Main Ingredient: RDX: made as described above. 91% of the total mixture.
Plasticizer 1: Diethlhexyl, this you can get from DOT 5 brake fluid. 5.3% of the total mixture.
Binder: Polyisobutylene, think aquanet hairspray from the 80s. 2.1% of the total mixture.
Plasticizer 2: SAE 10 non-detergent motor oil. 1.6% of the total mixture.

This description and information is for purely informational purposes, and I have purposefully left out the sequence of mixture, and other small steps because I don’t want any of you blowing up yourselves or anyone else. This is also a dirty version as the chemical purity will often be less than lab grade, which can result in instability, and lowered explosive yields. Any of this information is easy to find on wikipedia, which is where I got most of it. You just have to know how to assemble the information.

Other booby traps for the undead and the unwary living

We all know that in our survival guides there are tons of ways to make traps for game animals, all you need to do to use them on humans, is make them BIGGER. Just to save myself some time and typing, I will refer you to the US Army FM 20-32. This will instruct you on how to make and find booby traps, so that you don’t get caught being a booby.

I hope that you have found this article helpful, and informational. We all need to know things like this to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. THIS STUFF IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, ANYTHING YOU’RE STUPID ENOUGH TO DO AT HOME THAT RESULTS IN INJURY, DEATH, OR IMPRISONMENT, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR. (We = writers, owners, proprieters, advertisers, ect, et. al. )