I'm not a chemist by any stretch of the imagination. It seems to me that chemicals that go "boom" must have some sort of inherent instability or they wouldn't go "boom".

I do know a thing or two about rocket fuels. The basic chemicals that make up hypergolic propellant (ignites on contact with each other) are, in of themselves, highly toxic if not handled correctly. The oxidizer, nitrogen tetroxide, is very efficient at oxidizing your lungs if you inhale only a small quantity. The fuel, various forms of hydrazine, is basically an acid. You couldn't handle them without full SCAPE suits. Without being in a pressurized container, all they would do is to make a flash when they came in contact and quickly burn -- no explosion.

Solid propellant is made of benign stuff and must be carefully mixed together in liquid form first -- pretty much like making a cake. The oxidizer is ammonium perchlorate and the fuel is typically aluminum. There are other benign chemicals added as bonding agents. The fuel has the consistency of a pencil eraser. You can basically mold it into any shape you want, provided you survive the mixing operation. It won't ignite unless you apply a hot flame or you create a jagged edge, from which you can ignite it by friction. Again, it won't explode -- only burn. You can't put it out once it ignites and it burns at about 5000 degrees F, and the only thing you would succeed doing would be to burn a hole through the floor. I've carried inert pull-test samples (look like dog bones) through various checkpoints every once in a while. The only thing different from the real thing was that table salt was substituted for the ammonium perchlorate.