This was by far the largest HE charge I've set off. About 5 pounds of ammonium nitrate (NH₄NO₃) sensitized with 600mL of MEKP and detonated with about 45g of AP. A few grams of the AP were in a homemade electrical detonator and about 40 grams were in the "booster" charge. I'm sure far less AP would have worked, but I wanted to be sure because the AN was old and had a lot of rat poop in it...

MEKP and AP cap and booster.

AN with MEKP mixed in and detonator and booster in place.

Taped up and ready for use.

Dug about two feet into the side of a hill and buried.

A large wooden pallet and two heavy logs were placed over the hole next.

A very impressive blast!

The noise from the charge was sharper than I expected, but was not all that loud because of the dirt and wood over it. Debris shot up at least 40-50 feet and only small chunks of the logs were found, the rest was launched way out into the trees.

Hillside after.

Another shot of the hill.

Click here for video. (quicktime 1.4MB, if it doesn't work try right clicking and "save target as")

I was not one of the people shouting in the video, I can keep quiet but all those slack-jawed yokels around me couldn't...heh.

Update! Click here for a video (.wmv, 438KB) of the same thing from about 30ft away! If you canÔø‡t view .wmv files properly, you may need to update your version of Windows Media Player. If that doesnÔø‡t work, here is the same thing in .mpg but a larger file size. (.mpeg, 808KB)