NickBallard
member
- Joined
- Jun 20, 2006
- Messages
- 83
It seems like there's a lot of debate out there about what makes a pepper spray effective. Most places agree that depending on the brand of pepper spray and the spray type (stream, cone, fog, foam), pepper spray can be anywhere from 60%-95% effective. These statistics sound scary and that it would be important to get an effective pepper spray if you're a civilian, since civilians don't have the backup that an officer has if the spray doesn’t work. So what makes an effective pepper spray?
I would like to hear what everyone else has heard. There are different things that I've heard myself. From some sources, I've heard that SHUs are the only thing that's related to heat and that Oleoresin Capsicum percentage only determines how fast the effects kick in (since all pepper spray has a short delayed effect) and how long decontamination time is. The lower the OC%, the faster the effects kick in (good if someone has a baseball bat), but the shorter the effects last (so they can escape and find where you ran to before the police arrive). I saw a study submitted to the National Institute of Justice saying that a pepper spray above 5% OC doesn't atomize as easily, because it's an oil, and so it won’t affect the respiratory system as well. Then I've heard from others that SHUs and Oleoresin Capsicum percentage don't matter, but rather the major capcainoids (MC) percentage (active ingredient that are actually in the bottle). They say that SHUs is how hot the base resin is before it's mixed in with the carrier material/propellant that's also in the bottle, and the only true measure of pungency is when it leaves the nozzle, instead of how it is before it's mixed with the propellant. SHUs is just how many parts per million it takes to be diluted. If you take 5.3 million SHUs as base resin and then make it 2% of the total solution, it becomes diluted. I heard that the major capsaicinoids are the actual chemicals that make pepper spray work its magic, not the SHUs of the base resin or percentage of the solution that happens to be hot pepper. This all gets confusing to me. I've heard that pepper spray isn't very well researched nor is regulated like food and chemicals are. Does anyone know the scoop on pepper spray?
I would like to hear what everyone else has heard. There are different things that I've heard myself. From some sources, I've heard that SHUs are the only thing that's related to heat and that Oleoresin Capsicum percentage only determines how fast the effects kick in (since all pepper spray has a short delayed effect) and how long decontamination time is. The lower the OC%, the faster the effects kick in (good if someone has a baseball bat), but the shorter the effects last (so they can escape and find where you ran to before the police arrive). I saw a study submitted to the National Institute of Justice saying that a pepper spray above 5% OC doesn't atomize as easily, because it's an oil, and so it won’t affect the respiratory system as well. Then I've heard from others that SHUs and Oleoresin Capsicum percentage don't matter, but rather the major capcainoids (MC) percentage (active ingredient that are actually in the bottle). They say that SHUs is how hot the base resin is before it's mixed in with the carrier material/propellant that's also in the bottle, and the only true measure of pungency is when it leaves the nozzle, instead of how it is before it's mixed with the propellant. SHUs is just how many parts per million it takes to be diluted. If you take 5.3 million SHUs as base resin and then make it 2% of the total solution, it becomes diluted. I heard that the major capsaicinoids are the actual chemicals that make pepper spray work its magic, not the SHUs of the base resin or percentage of the solution that happens to be hot pepper. This all gets confusing to me. I've heard that pepper spray isn't very well researched nor is regulated like food and chemicals are. Does anyone know the scoop on pepper spray?