sorry mark, if i come across as telling people that flashpowder is a safe thing to use, however i thought i pointed that out
it is true, that most FP is quite shock, friction, static, anything sensitive, and in that regard it should not be used
however, it theoretically could be used to ignite a motor, however, the fact that it deflagrates its entire mass in milliseconds is an inherently dangerous proposition. im sorry about the formulas, its just, to display a safer form(though there is no safe explosive) of the said explosive(flash powder), i had to incorporate SOME of the materials. however, i have noticed that in previous posts the formulas have been cut out, so i decided to exclude the oxidiser in all of my FP examples.
my background is, i've been into model rocketry and experimental rocketry since i was like... 5 years old. i used to have a paper route, but that was not sufficient to fund all those estes motors. so i decided to do some research, and i found a lot about chemical reactions. at first is was solely explosives that i was into, however, it really funnels you in, once you get hooked to explosives and breaking down the various compositions, you start to realise that gun powder (while very powerful) is nowhere NEAR as powerful as some other compositions, its quite exciting. also, oxidiser and reducer functions are self tought, its really quite interesting. so after that, i started producing my own sugar motors with that brown tape(for the casing) and pourstone for the nozzle. while it was quite dangerous(i had to boil the sugar and oxidiser together so i could cast a grain) it was really educational and exciting. now im looking into other various things, such as acid etching, with hydroflouric acid(its molecular size lets it penetrate the skin in milliseconds) its so powerful on glass and skin, that 99.9999%conc hydroflouric acid would eat through your finger in less than a second. however, its used extensively in acid etching windows and such. my interest is the flouride which is an anesthetic, so when the acid is actually poured on you, you'll see it eating your flesh, but you wont feel it. quite dangerous. im also exploring plastics. did you know that adding anything acidic to milk will make plastic? take a cup of milk and add vinegar to it, let it sit for a while and you'll have a low grade plastic in a cup. good stuff. thats just a little bit about me, just in-case anyone who was sketched out by me was wondering.
oh yeah, a detonation means that the actual compositions molecules deflagrate so fast, that they came up with a word detonate for it. with flashpowder, the reaction is subsonic, so it does not detonate. its container CAN, but the FP itself wont. hence the deep BOOM in an m-80, a detonation is a really loud crack. supersonic, it sends a shockwave. trinitrotoluene(dynomite) detonates. and 1 stick of dynomite is about a couple thousand times more powerful than a single m-80, simply because of the shockwave that is released. and dynomite would detonate without a container, while FP would not.