They aren't NATO Lifeboat matches, but the Coghlan's Wind & Water proof matches are widely available and are a pretty close approximation... Not the waterproof ones - Wind & Water proof, product No. 700.

If you really want to fool around with something like this... single base smokeless powder can be more or less plasticized - like a thick solvent-based glue, and molded around a matchstick, up to and including part of the head (leave enough exposed to strike). Use regular hardware-store acetone and mind the fumes from the acetone (not as nearly bad as many solvents, but be careful just the same).

Using just acetone takes a bit of mechanical effort to disolve the nitrocellulouse - it goes a little faster after you wash off the graphite coating (IMR, for example) by stirring the mess. Hogdon's Aussie-made single base powders don't appear to have any graphite coating, but I've never disolved any of it.

Stick to single base powders - only the nitrocellulouse disolves in the acetone anyway; double base powder has another ingredient that, while you won't be able to extract, might put a bug up the BATF's, er, nose if they THOUGHT you were trying to extract it.

Before anyone asks - no, it will not explode. Smokeless powder just burns softly with a feathery, hot flame - doesn't burn nearly as violently as a sure 'nuff match head. You could set off a block of TNT in a keg of smokless powder and you'd just make a big fireball of burning powder - it has to be REALLY confined to burn fast enough to build up enough pressure to make a sound like "bang" (even then it is NOT exploding). Confined, like in a gun barrel with a tight bullet in front of it. It's routinely disposed of by open burning in pits... left over cannon and mortar powder charges, for example. I've burned tons of it (literally).

Anyway, I never made modified matches with the stuff, but I have tinkered with molded smokeless powder - I needed a pyrotechnic breakaway device years ago and that fit the bill - sort of explosive bolts without the explosions <grin>. We learned MUCH more practical chemistry when I went to school than my kids have <sigh>...

But for the effort and expense, I'd just buy the real McCoy... and for the record, match heads are a much more sensitive compound than the chemical we call "smokeless powder".

Well, something to tinker with, perhaps.

Have fun; be safe. Let us know how your experiments turn out.

Tom

(I seem to want to spell it "Coughlin's" rather than "Coghlan's" - hence the edit)