As far as I understand, bear spray is a more powerful version of regular pepper spray. What would be the effect if used against a human attacker? If I want to protect myself against a run-of-the-mill street mugger, wouldn’t bear spray be better than just regular spray?
Having been downwind of a burst of it, two words: “Not Good.”
My canister indicates it’s 2.0% capcaisin and ‘related capsaicinoids,’ and comes with the warning that it “may cause irreversible eye damage if sprayed in the eye at close range.” Couple that with the lack of the ability to breathe and your sinuses filling full of snot and tears in short order, it’s what I call in my business “a bad day.”
I’d gone through certification in a gas chamber as part of my annual training, and got exposed to CS gas. Let’s just say the hero in me thought I could take it, and I took a full breath.
Nope.
I wasn’t so much crying as I was dripping and coughing. Every orifice in my sinuses opened up, and damn near liquified. CS ain’t nothing to play with. Most law enforcement uses pepper sprays/CS between 1.5% - 3% ‘heat.’ Personal units are somewhere between 0.8% - 1.0% as I understand it. My canister isn’t even the industrial stuff, which I’ve seen up around 8%.
Bear spray, at least my canister, is directional, meaning it shoots out in a directed jet up to 30 feet–that’s to keep the bear away from you. So with my canister not only are you hit by the vapors, you’re covered in the shit, and while you’re trying to wipe it off you, you’re just smearing more into you, making the situation exponentially worse. I’d heard anecdotally that the industrial stuff can cause respiratory failure and even cardiac problems, but I think the latter is due to the shock and sting of the stuff, and your inability to breathe.
So, in short: you’re taking a liability using industrial bear spray on humans. You risk putting them in a lethal situation; if you’re trying to use a less lethal solution, you’re opening yourself up to liability of prosecution. Street muggers aren’t nearly as strong, fast, or mean as the frothing black bear that aims to snack on you.
Tripler
And that shit travels . . . even in the open-air woods!
One thing to consider is that using bear spray may be a felony if you use it on people. Look at pretty much any product. Somewhere on the container is some language that using this product in a manner it wasn’t designed for is a federal offense.
Get some namby pamby local DA who is offended that you defended yourself and you could be in a world of shit.
Which I personally think is a crock but there you go.
So this would mean that in jurisdictions were using guns for self defense is out of the question, bear spray would also be frowned upon by the powers that be?
Depends on whether the attacker had Bear arms. 
We had some individuals working with us from Singapore a few years ago that were given a can of bear spray and a briefing on its use. Before the headed out to bear country they reasoned that bear repellent must work similarly to insect repellent and proceeded to spray each other down like you would a can of Off!. They then managed to drive about 5 km before they couldn’t stand the fumes anymore and called for help. They were in the hospital for the rest of the day with compresses on their eyes. Their sinuses were completely clear, however.
In Canada, using bear spray against people can be chargeable under the Firearms Act.
The thing is, the percentage isn’t the important thing. It’s the percentage of “what”, and by that I mean Scoville Heat Units.
Pepper spray that is a 2% concentration of 3 million SHU is going to be more effective than a 10% solution of 500K units. A lower concentration with higher SHU is not only more effective, it’s less likely to get gunked up in the nozzle and cause a spray failure.
Most law enforcement duty belt sprays do not mix CS/CN with pepper spray. Tear gas sprays are applied differently (sprayed at the chest and they disperse compared to sprayed in the face) and tear gas was found to have permanent negative effects. With the exception of riot control canisters CS/CN formulas are no longer used.
Even in “stand your ground” states, there’s situations in which you’d be okay subduing someone with pepper spray but not shooting them with a gun or otherwise inflicting grievous harm on them.
Oh I agree completely. I don’t know what “other capsaicoids” may refer to, but if its anything like my mother’s ‘hot chile,’ you’re better off using Windex. If its anything like what they serve around here (Albuquerque), then may God have mercy on your soul.
You’re right. CS is a formally a chemical weapon, and to deploy it against civilians is kind of a big deal. I brought it up only as a reference that I’ve tasted both formulas.
Tripler
They equally suck.
As an FYI, bear spray is prohibited in some national parks. Out here you can’t carry it in Yosemite anymore - I asked and was told that the majority of usage of bear spray in the park was by one person against another (illegal, as someone noted), it wasn’t fending off bears.
http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/weapons.htm
You may still see it being carried by people heading to the backcountry or JMT/PCT through-hikers, but walking around the valley floor with it on your hip will probably get the attention of the park rangers.
On the other hand, in Yellowstone it is very much officially encouraged to carry bear spray in the backcountry. There have been a lot more recent bear attacks on humans in Yellowstone than in Yosemite, though.
Except that, for any given chemical, the Scoville rating is proportional to the concentration. The Scoville rating for capsaicin is 16,000,000 , so a 2% concentration of capsaicin will have a Scoville rating of 320,000 , and a 10% concentration of capsaicin will have a Scoville rating of 1.6 million. There’s no such thing as a “2% concentration of capsaicin at 3 million SHU”.
Now, there might be some leeway in the “other capsaicinoids”, which might be more or less strong than capsaicin, but even there, once the mix of chemicals is set, the concentration determines the strength.
You can watch endless videos on Utube of people being hit with bear spray unintentionally or intentionally.
Their may be legal differences but the effect of pepper spray vs bear spray seem to be the same, human on the ground effectively incapacitated.
We may be splitting hairs with definitions, but I still think you’re incorrect.
Fox Labs for example has a product they claim is a 2% concentration at 5.3million SHU.
True. Note that in Yellowstone the bear incidents are related to grizzlies, and Yosemite does not have any of those (only black bears in CA).
I fuggin hate pepper spray even though I’ve developed a fight survivable immunity to it after being prayed numerous times during training and real word applications of it (it blowsback sometimes, inside or out)
I’ve sprayed dogs with it and on some of them it had no effect while on others it worked perfectly.
But against a bear I’d much prefer a high powered rifle, at least having the option of one. Sorry, but as good as it is I’ve seen OC fail on both 2 & 4 legged animals and I’d rather not take chances with a freaking bear!!!:eek:
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High powered rifles will fail against a bear at least as often as pepper spray will. There are very few places you can shoot a bear that will kill it quickly enough that it can’t kill you.
I can shoot a bear accurately from a longer distance than I can spray it with OC.
And if OC fails once it will continue to fail no matter how many sprays are used. While shooting multiple times may eventually cause the desired effect.