The current trend in the development of gun propellant is to replace the non-energetic plasticizers with the energetic plasticizer. This leads to better energetic performance of gun propellant. The purpose of the present paper is to explore the possibility of enhancing the ballistic performance of RDX based gun propellant by incorporating an energetic plasticizer into the propellant composition. Compositions containing N-n-butyl-N-(2-nitroxyethyl)nitramine (Bu-NENA) as an energetic plasticizer with varying percentage of RDX have been studied theoretically and experimentally. Performance in terms of ballistic parameters, sensitivity, thermal characteristics, stability and mechanical properties was evaluated and compared with the vis-A-vis compositions containing dioctylphthalate as a non-energetic plasticizer. Experimental data on comparative study indicates that Bu-NENA based propellants are superior to DOP based propellants in respect of ballistic performance. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.