Grey_Mana said:
A quick search indicates bear spray has a lot less active ingredient than pepper spray intended for people, and that bear spray doesn't have any secret ingedients just for bears that would make it work better against people. I speculate that bear noses are more sensitive than human noses, so less cpasaicin is needed to deter them.
MSDS for several bear sprays: one is 0.75% capsaicin, another is 1% capsaicin, a dog spray that is 0.44% capsaicin.
Another page has a bear spray with 0.78% capscicin.
Several MSDS for pepper sprays: several seem to be 10% oleoresin capsicum + 1.33% other capsicinoids.
Pepper spray is often misleadingly advertised and described. Even some laws subsequently made based on the misleading data are written by people just as uninformed going by manufacturer advertising and information. There is laws limiting OC content for example in places.
OC or oleoresin capsicum is not the active ingredient, though it is touted by many as the measure of strength of a spray.
An oleoresin is an oil and resin solution. A pepper extract does form an oleoresin which is the original source of this.
But the oil content of the spray is not the strength of the spray. In fact many sprays have a significant quantity of inactive vegetable oil, including some added during manufacture.
There is a lot of inactive oleoresin in many. A manufacturer can easily change the oil content without changing the actual strength.
The result is a 15% OC spray can be weaker than an 10% OC spray. The percentage of oil solution in the spray is an inadequate measure of potency.
You can have two separate 10% sprays and have one saveral times as hot as the other.
The capsaicin content is a more accurate measure of heat, this is a component you can remove and crystallize in a lab. It is much more directly proportional to heat content.
A comparison would be a solution made from jalapenos vs one made from habaneros. You could add an equal amount of that oily extract (or oleoresin) to a food dish, but the same amount of habanero oil would be many times hotter. That is because the same amount of habanero oil will have a much higher concentration of capsaicin.
That is similar to the OC content of a spray, and why the OC percentage means nothing in regards to spray strength. The strength of the oil (oleoresin) is more important than the quantity of the oil in the spray.
Similarly there is less active capsaicinoids, not all of them are equally as hot as each other, and some cite all capsaicinoids as capsaicin, which is misleading as well.
So you cite the bear spray's advertised capsaicin content, but then only the defense sprays OC content. You cannot compare them.
The animal sprays could be stronger or weaker, you cannot tell that based on the OC content.
Now there is human sprays I know that have higher capsacin content. However the primary difference in bear sprays is the rate they fire at. They unleash a large quantity of spray in a relatively short period of time.
Most similar products are limited to police riot control and corrections.
