The molecule adopts a cage-like structure with the nitrogen atoms having an unusual trigonal planar geometry.

HMTD is chemically very stable when pure (free of acids, bases, and metal ions) and does not quickly sublime like its acetone counterparts.

HMTD is a more powerful initiating explosive than mercury fulminate, but its poor thermal and chemical stability prevents its use in detonators.

[6] Nevertheless, HMTD is one of the three most widely used primary explosives in improvised, amateur made blasting caps, the others being TATP and silver acetylide.

Despite no longer being used in any military application, and despite its shock sensitivity, HMTD remains a common home-made explosive and has been used in a large number of suicide bombings and other attacks throughout the world.

For example, it was one of the components in the explosives intended to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in the 2000 millennium attack plots[9][10] and the 2016 New York and New Jersey bombings,[11] as well as one of the components of the explosives attempted to be made by the neo-Nazi terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division in the United States.