Flash Powder

Flash powder is a relatively strong low explosive, if confined, it can do descent

damage in smaller amounts (such as a gram) and when not confined, it burns
incredibly fast and can self confine in amounts excess of 40 grams. In this
tutorial I will prepare magnesium: potassium nitrate flash (Mg: Kno3). There
are many other flash powders, so if your using them (such as 70:30 kclo4: Al)
just measure them accordingly and then follow the same steps.

First you will need some materials.

- Magnesium powder (about 300 to 400 mesh will do) If using finer Mg, your
flash powder becomes much more sensitive

- Potassium nitrate (make sure you use a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle
to make it very finely powdered).
- Paper
- scale

Now that you have your materials, weigh out Mg and Kno3 in an even
amount, 50:50 seems to work quite well for me, although there are others with
sulphur. Once measured out, make sure, if your grinding your own Mg, that
your roll over it with a mortar, don’t use the pestle dish, just use the back end
of the mortar to crush down the Mg to make it as flake like as possible. Next
take your two chemicals and pour them together.

Now get a little meal black powder, and put a small amount with the other
chemicals, this will help you see that it's mixed well, and make it easier to
ignite (Mg flash is hard to ignite).
Now mix your chemicals together very well by stirring them around on a flat
surface with a popsicle stick, or a razor blade on some glass (best way). Do
this until they are very well mixed, and then test out a very tiny amount on the
tip of a metal object, this may take a couple seconds to ignite. With other flash
powders, only mix by rolling the chemicals around on some paper so that they
don’t scrape off of anything and accidentally ignite. Now your flash powder is
complete, this can be used for breaking aerial shells, m-80's, and a lot of other
stuff