Lead Styphnate Manufacturer & Supplier

BÖRÜ Defense manufactures and supplies Lead Styphnate to defence industry customers worldwide, from Karatay/Konya, TÜRKİYE. Material is shipped with a certificate of analysis and safety data sheet; export documentation is prepared per destination.

What is Lead Styphnate?

Lead styphnate (lead 2,4,6-trinitroresorcinate, C₆HN₃O₈Pb ), whose name is derived from styphnic acid, is an explosive used as a component in primer and detonator mixtures for less sensitive secondary explosives. Lead styphnate is only slightly soluble in water and methanol Samples of lead styphnate vary in color from yellow to gold, orange, reddish-brown, to brown. Lead styphnate is known in various polymorphs, hydrates, and basic salts. Normal lead styphnate monohydrate, monobasic lead styphnate, tribasic lead styphnate dihydrate, and pentabasic lead styphnate dehydrate as well as α, β polymorphs of lead styphnate exist.

Lead Styphnate

Lead styphnate forms six-sided crystals of the monohydrate and small rectangular crystals. Lead styphnate is particularly sensitive to fire and the discharge of static electricity. Long thin crystals are particularly sensitive. Lead styphnate does not react with other metals and is less sensitive to shock and friction than mercury fulminate or lead azide. It is stable in storage, even at elevated temperatures. As with other lead-containing compounds, lead styphnate is toxic owing to heavy metal poisoning.

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Lead Styphnate Manufacturer

Why choose us for lead styphnate?

• Defence-Grade Laboratory
• Experience
• High Quality
• Right on Time

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Structure

Normal lead styphnate exists as α and β polymorphs, both being monoclinic crystals. The lead centres are seven-coordinate and are bridged via oxygen bridges. The water molecule is coordinated to the metal and is also hydrogen-bonded to the anion. Many of the Pb-O distances are short, indicating some degree of covalency. The styphnate ions lie in approximately parallel planes linked by Pb atoms.

History of Lead Styphnate

Styphnic acid (trinitroresorcinol), the parent acid of lead styphnate, has been known to chemists since the nineteenth century. Its name goes back to a Greek word for astringent. The lead salt attracted attention as an initiating compound in the early twentieth century, and the Austrian chemist Edmund von Herz is generally credited with describing the anhydrous normal salt in 1919.

Its breakthrough came in priming. Older primers contained mercury fulminate and chlorates, which damaged cartridge cases and left corrosive salts in the barrel. In 1928 the German firm Rheinisch-Westfälische Sprengstoff introduced Sinoxid, a primer free of mercury and of corrosive residue, with lead styphnate as its main initiating ingredient. Other countries adopted similar primers over the following decades, and after the Second World War lead styphnate became the usual basis of small arms primers worldwide. Lead-free primers have been gaining ground since the late twentieth century.

What are the Uses of Lead Styphnate?

The main use of lead styphnate is in primers. It is the usual primary explosive in the percussion primers of military small arms and cannon-calibre ammunition. The same type of primer is used in police, hunting and sporting cartridges, including rimfire ammunition. In detonators it often accompanies lead azide, and it is also found in electric igniters and in cartridge-actuated devices such as aircraft ejection seat and canopy systems.

Civil industry uses it in the power loads of powder-actuated fastening tools, in the cartridges of captive-bolt stunning devices used in slaughterhouses, and in the detonators made for mining and quarrying. As with other primary explosives, there is no consumer market for the substance itself. It is supplied to licensed ammunition, primer and detonator manufacturers, who process it under explosives regulations.

Advantages of Lead Styphnate

• Primers based on it leave no corrosive salts, so barrels do not rust the way they did with chlorate primers.
• It contains no mercury, so brass cases stay sound after firing and can be reloaded.
• It ignites easily and reliably over a wide range of temperatures, which suits service ammunition used from arctic to desert conditions.
• It keeps well in long storage, and ammunition primed with it remains serviceable for many years.
• Nearly a century of mass production means that its specifications, test methods and handling practices are mature and widely understood.

Disadvantages of Lead Styphnate

• It is a lead compound, and lead is a cumulative poison that harms the nervous system, blood formation and reproduction.
• Firing releases lead as fine airborne particles. At indoor ranges this exposes shooters and staff, and it calls for ventilation, hygiene rules and blood lead monitoring.
• It is very sensitive to static electricity and flame, so production requires strict earthing and other protective measures.
• Lead builds up in the soil and backstops of shooting ranges, which leads to environmental clean-up obligations.
• In the European Union it is listed as a substance of very high concern under REACH, and a number of military and police users now ask for lead-free training ammunition.
• Lead-free primers are already common in ammunition for training and indoor ranges, and this trend is likely to reduce demand for lead styphnate over time.

Lead Styphnate specifications

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Page last reviewed:2026-09-17