Important: Safety Warning
This page contains instructions involving gunpowder or other explosive or pyrotechnic compositions. Preparing explosives as described has caused severe injuries and deaths, and is illegal in most places.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Cordite
an explosive, the component parts of which are nitroglycerine, 58 per cent.; gun cotton, 37, and mineral jelly, 5. Acetone dissolves this combination, but evaporates in drying. One of the features that make cordite valuable is that its two ingredients, which by themselves are dangerous to handle, are almost harmless combined. It can hardly be exploded by accident. While in a plastic state it is pressed through a die in the form of a thread or cord and wound upon reels to dry.