the drawing illustrating a schematic diagram of the equipment used for blending the explosive composition the particulate ammonium nitrate or other inorganic nitrate or mixture thereof is delivered into a bin 10 by an auger 12 coming from a bulk facility holding the nitrate the inorganic nitrate drops into a hammermill 14 which grinds the inorganic oxidizer to a uniform particle size the ground inorganic nitrate exits from the hammermill and is conveyed by auger 16 to a mixer 18 similar to a conventional mortar mixer a dry gelling agent may be added to the oxidizer in the mixer the mixer incorporates mixing blades within it which slowly tumble the dry particulate mixture the mixer is pivotally mounted at pivot point 19 to frame members 20 for dumping the mixture after blending of the second component into a bin and auger packer 22 as illustrated a scale 24 is included beneath hopper 10 for measuring a predetermined weight of the dry particulate oxidizer to be fed into the mixer 18 when formulating the explosive composition a predetermined weight of the dry particulate oxidizer as weighed by the bag scale 24 is fed into the hammermill 14 and into the mortar mixer 18 the second component of the explosive composition the concentrate of particulate aluminum suspended in an aqueous slurry is poured into the mortar mixer simultaneously with or prior to the addition of a predetermined amount of additional water.