Choosing Pepper Spray for Everyday Carry

hey chris baker here from luckygunner.com if you carry a gun i think you should seriously consider also carrying pepper spray even if you don't carry a gun i think you should consider pepper spray that is what we're going to talk about today pepper spray also known as oleo resin capsicum or oc for short there are a lot of myths and misconceptions out there about oc i could spend this whole video trying to dispel those myths i would love to go really deep into the why when and how to use pepper spray but i'm not going to do that today because fortunately that stuff has already been covered in great detail by other people and they have done a fantastic job so i am going to link to those resources below i will quickly cover some of the basics but i am going to spend most of this video reviewing different pepper spray products i have a dozen of them here and no i'm not doing any exposure testing in this one i love you guys but not that much but i did test spray each one at a target so that we can see how far they go and how long they last we're also going to look at what type of oc is in each product the activation mechanism or trigger the type of pattern they have and i will talk about what to look for in a quality oc for your everyday carry okay so why pepper spray i thought this guy usually talked about guns i carry both a gun and pepper spray on a daily basis and i think the pepper spray is probably the more useful of the two items i honestly can't remember how i initially got into the habit of carrying oc but i'm pretty sure chuck haggard was at least partly responsible chuck is the owner of agile tactical training and a retired police lieutenant from topeka kansas over the last few years he has done more than anyone else to educate the firearms training world about the benefits of carrying oc during his time in law enforcement chuck's conservative estimate is that he used oc on suspects in the field around three to four hundred times and on trainees around fifteen hundred times he has personally been exposed to oc well over 60 times if anybody knows what pepper spray is capable of it's chuck haggard he also teaches open enrollment pepper spray classes i had the opportunity to take his oc instructor course a couple of years ago i highly recommend that or any of his oc seminars if you get the chance a lot of the most important basic need to know stuff is available in articles chuck has written and some video clips of his lectures on youtube again i will link to those below so the quick elevator pitch for oc is that it gives you a force option that's somewhere between harsh language and shooting somebody we all know that statistically we are very unlikely to end up in a situation where we actually need to use our firearm to defend our life much more common are situations that call for some kind of intervention that's less than deadly force so like maybe somebody is behaving in a threatening way but they don't have a weapon and they haven't done anything yet that would warrant using deadly force that might be a good time to deploy some oc now it's not magic oc is not a substitute for a deadly force option it doesn't work 100 of the time but it is a forced response that we can use early on in an encounter to hopefully stop everything or get away from that person before the situation escalates using a non-lethal option sooner means we don't have to resort to the lethal option later and if we mess up and spray somebody who didn't really deserve it the consequences are far less severe nobody dies nobody goes to prison oc is essentially a chemical inflammatory agent extracted from the oils of certain chili peppers it causes a severe burning sensation when it touches the skin if it gets in and around the eyes they will swell up and most people will voluntarily close their eyes if it gets in the nose and mouth it usually causes severe coughing and shortness of breath unless they are in some kind of altered mental state or have trained or practiced to fight through it people who are hit in the face with high quality pepper spray tend to just stop doing whatever they were doing before it also tends to work really well on animals like dogs and bears the oc formulas that are used by the major manufacturers today are not known to have any long-term health effects it's a very safe product for most people the worst of the effects will pass in about an hour compare that to wasp and hornet spray which has little to no short-term effect on humans but definitely can cause serious long-term health problems it's basically the opposite of what we want in a non-lethal force option pepper spray is cheap and readily available there is literally no reason to rely on wasp and hornet's break for self-defense of course just like a firearm the efficacy of pepper spray is partly dependent on the delivery mechanism so let's look at our 12 pepper spray devices some of them are good some of them are kind of gimmicky and not so good i'll start with one of the good ones this is a saber brand product it comes in a keychain style dispenser with a springy flip top safety you really have to pay attention to the packaging on these things they will often use the same dispensers for different products you might even see multiple companies using the same dispenser for different products it doesn't mean the oc inside the dispenser is the same for example saber uses this dispenser for their standard stream oc for their gel and for their three in one product this dispenser comes in several different colors and the color doesn't necessarily indicate what's in it this one contains the standard saber red oc that fires in a stream it also has a uv marking die that supposedly helps police identify the suspect later on i'd be really surprised if that has ever actually happened but it doesn't hurt for it to be in there you really have to read the fine print carefully on the back of the package to learn that this one is actually a stream and not a spray it says pepper spray really big on the front but that's kind of misleading a stream is like a laser or a spray is more like a flashlight beam a stream is not as likely to get blown off target or back in your face as a spray is the spray has the advantage of creating a cloud of oc that more often causes those respiratory effects with a spray you've got a better chance of getting at least some oc on the target but you're probably going to get at least a little back on yourself you can also use a spray to create kind of a barrier cloud that hangs in the air for a second an attacker would have to go through that to get to you while you're retreating spray and stream both have their place just make sure you know what you're actually getting you should also know that oc that's marketed for self-defense is pretty much completely unregulated the manufacturers can make whatever claims they want on the packaging and no one's going to call them on it if it's completely made up so brand name is really important the oc used in sabres products is generally considered one of the best and most consistent that doesn't mean that every one of sabres products uses a good dispenser it just means that the oc itself is generally good most of the products i'm testing today use the saber red oc formula when you're looking at labels you shouldn't get too wrapped up in things like scoville heat units or percentage of oc that's in the product those are not great indicators of its effectiveness if you want some kind of number look for the percentage of major capsaicinoids or mc you want something between about point seven and two percent mc the saber red formula is 1.33 and most of the good oc has similar potency most of these units we're going to look at today are activated by pressing down on a switch or a button on the top it is best to use your thumb for that you can get a nice firm grip on it that way if you hold it like it's a can of lysol and activate it with your index finger you're not going to have a very strong grip on the unit you're also probably going to point the thing low whether you like it or not according to the packaging for this flip top stream dispenser we've got 15 grams of product in here some of these are measured in grams and some of them use ounces i'm not really sure why it says the effective range is 10 feet and you should be able to get 25 bursts out of it they don't say how long a burst is but let's assume it's about half of a second so if i just spray all this at once it should last for about 10 to 12 seconds before it's empty for our test i looked at the maximum effective range claimed by the manufacturer for each product then i got my friend carl the 3d dummy target to stand that distance away from me the black marks on the building there indicate feet saber claims this one is effective up to 10 feet the camera makes it look like he's way behind the 10 foot mark but he's actually right in line with it unfortunately the camera doesn't pick up the actual stream very well but looking at the target close-up you can see that at 10 feet i'm just barely able to get a few drops in his face the stream really starts to dissipate at about seven or eight feet so i think 10 feet is pretty optimistic but i did get a solid 10 seconds out of it and this was pretty typical for almost all the products i tested the number of bursts or duration claimed by the manufacturer was pretty much spot on the effective range was maybe two or three feet longer than i would be comfortable with so at about five to eight feet the saber flip top streamer should do exactly what we want a pocket oc unit to do okay let's look at another one this one is from a somewhat new company called palm p-o-m it is very similar to the one we just looked at but it is slightly smaller it has the same kind of flip top lid it's also a streaming unit even though they call it a spray it comes in a ton of different color combinations if you're into that kind of thing i've been carrying one of these myself for about the last year and a half or so it's not a saber product palm uses their own oc according to their website it is a 1.4 mc formula chuck haggard and some other folks have tried it out on volunteers and it appears to be just as effective as sabres stuff palm says there is half an ounce of product in here it's supposed to be good for 10 seconds with a max range of 10 to 12 feet so i set carl up at 12 feet and again that was pretty optimistic i could arc a few drops in there and some of that might run down into his eyes but that was not ideal i was also dealing with a little bit of wind so that probably played a part too later on i tried another palm unit on my other buddy fritz i had fritz stand a little closer more like eight feet away and by this point the wind had actually really picked up and you can see some of the droplets getting blown right toward the camera but at this range firing in short bursts like you're actually supposed to i did get some decent coverage this is one of the big advantages of a stream type dispenser it is usable in the wind some of the spray style units we'll look at in a minute don't do nearly as well in the wind one thing missing from the package for this palm dispenser is an expiration date that's actually really important the oc itself doesn't expire but the canister can start to lose pressure after a while i wouldn't carry one past the expiration date if you take the plastic housing off on this the expiration date is printed on the bottom of the metal canister itself it would be nice if they said something about that on the box because most people wouldn't even know to look for it here's another saber streaming unit this one is super common i've seen it at big box stores and hardware stores it is the sabre three in one compact streaming unit it's got a maximum range of 10 feet and 25 bursts i actually got pretty good coverage on carl at 10 feet and it lasted for 17 whole seconds which is really impressive for something this small but i would not recommend this particular product for two reasons first the safety the other two units we've looked at so far have a spring-loaded flip top to guard against unintentional activation this one has a button you slide over to lock it in place the problem is it doesn't take much for that to slide right back over into the fire position i actually carried one of these for a couple of months a long time ago and it was frequently not in this safe position when i would take it out of my pocket chuck has mentioned the unintentional pocket discharges are pretty common with these getting oc on your junk will ruin your day pretty quickly so consider yourself warned the other issue here is the three in one formula itself it's called that because it's got oc uv marking dye and cs gas that is a type of tear gas it can be effective but it also takes like 20 to 60 seconds before it actually kicks in so you're basically diluting your oc which usually works instantly with something else that may have no effect for up to a minute cs is also really hard to clean up oc will dissipate over time if it gets in your car or on your clothes your furniture or something like that cs tends to just hang around forever so for self-defense there's not really any good reason to use a product with cs in it okay let's look at one more streaming unit this one is really good even though i think it's a bit large for pocket carry this is the mark 6 dispenser this particular version is called first defense by defense technology who is now owned by safariland this one can be tough to find on the typical consumer websites you might have to go buy it from one of those cop supply websites they will usually sell you these smaller units even if you don't have the law enforcement credentials to show them like they require on some other oc products several companies use the mark vi dispenser including sabre the saber version is good but i just haven't been able to find it for sale for a while the defense technology version comes in several different strengths including really weak point four and point two percent mc versions you want the one that says one point three percent stream at the top of the label it also wouldn't hurt to pick up one of these this is a practice unit filled with an inert water-based fluid so you can do your own testing or practice with a partner without anyone getting ocd there are actually inner practice versions available for almost all of the units that i'm looking at today it's always a good idea to get a couple of those when you buy your oc the mark 6 has .68 ounces of oc which is supposed to be good for 12 to 14 short bursts at 10 to 12 feet with carl standing at 12 feet i was able to get him really good in the chest and the neck but i could not arc that spray up into his face it did last for six full seconds which would be equivalent to 12 half second bursts later on i got my buddy fritz to take a face full of the mark six at eight feet and now you can see why i really like this thing every short burst is just dumping a ton of that oc onto the target i'm aiming for the mouth and kind of working it up into the eyes in one to two second long bursts fritz is gonna have a bad day this is a saber flip top unit just like the first one i looked at except the container is pink and it's got a gel inside instead of the standard oc the oc gels are really common right now but this is the only gel unit i tested in this batch gels come out a lot like a stream but it's even thicker there's almost no chance of blowback however there's also almost no aerosolization so you get none of the respiratory effects you have to hit the target directly in the eyes the gels also tend to take a little longer before the effects kick in compared to the sprays or the streams gels are used in places like hospitals where you really don't want any of that oc getting into the air and into the ventilation system and stuff like that for personal protection gel is probably not the best option for most people saber claims this gel is good for 25 bursts up to 12 feet away just like the stream version it lasted about 10 seconds i did get a good amount of the gel into carl's face at 12 feet even with the wind so the range is actually pretty good on this thing i think i would still sacrifice a couple of feet of range for a product that's more likely to splash into the eyes and nose and start taking effect sooner all right now let's take a look at some of the spray units first i've got a trio of products that i'm going to group together these are part of the asp defender series they have three sizes the smallest is the palm defender the blue one there without the package is the key defender and the largest one is the street defender sabre sells an identical product that they call the tactical pepper spray baton i'm not sure if asp is using sabers oc in the defender series or if it's from somewhere else these batons are aluminum with a brass activation button at the base it comes with a key ring that you can loop through the button to activate it you just flip off the plastic safety ring and then you press the button these things are sturdy enough that you could use them as a striking weapon if you have training for that maybe not with the palm defender it's a little small for that the largest of the three the street defender is supposed to have an effective range of 10 feet with up to 30 half-second bursts for the first second or so i got a nice cloud at face level going out to maybe six or seven feet but then the pressure dropped and the wind just started blowing the spray straight up in the air some of the mist eventually wafted back down into carl's face after about seven seconds there was no pressure left in the canister and the remaining oc just kind of dribbled out i thought maybe that was a fluke but i got similar performance out of the mid-sized key defender the key defender claims a range of five feet and six half second bursts again the initial blast shot the spray pretty far this time to about five or six feet but the wind blew most of it to the right of the target and then as the pressure died out the spray just blew straight up i really only got one and a half to two seconds of usable spray out of it the palm defender actually worked as advertised it lasted for a little less than two seconds it's supposed to have three half-second bursts so that's about right the range they claim is just three feet and that was also pretty accurate fritz got a nice cloud right in the face from the initial burst even though most of the oc was blown off course by the wind that doesn't look like a lot of oc hit the target but since it's in a spray form he's probably going to breathe in a lot of those little droplets and get it in his eyes more would be better but it doesn't necessarily require a ton of this stuff for it to be effective it just has to get into the right places that said i am not super impressed with the defender series overall even though they are usually pretty well regarded the wind caused some issues which was to be expected but the key defender and the street defender both ran out of gas long before they should have and that is a major disappointment next we have the ruger pepper spray gun this is produced in a partnership with saber in fact all of the ruger branded pepper spray products use sabres oc this is basically just a little canister of oc with a plastic housing that fits into a gun shaped thing it has a safety in front of the trigger to prevent unintentional discharge safety is really stiff though and there's also this little plastic shroud here around the safety button to i guess prevent it from getting switched off accidentally it also makes it really hard to switch off on purpose ruger of course has a proud tradition of obnoxious manual safety designs on their firearms so it's no surprise that they would do the same on their pepper spray you're supposed to be able to get five bursts out of this thing with a max range of 10 feet one continuous spray lasted a little over two seconds the sun came out and was hitting the spray at just the right angle so you can actually see this one really well it did not make it to 10 feet really it looks like there's a decent cloud out to maybe seven or eight feet that would be pretty effective i pretty much hate this thing though the safety is dumb it's a lot bigger than just a simple type canister dispenser would be and there are a lot of problems that could arise from waving something around in public that looks like a gun that's not actually a gun next we've got a real worst case scenario for a spray style dispenser this is a saber product that is designed to look like an ordinary ink pen you take off the top and then it actually looks more like a breath spray but surprise it's extra spicy this is supposed to give you 15 bursts at eight feet i think you can already guess that didn't happen it actually did spray pretty continuously for almost 10 seconds but the spray was so weak it went nowhere the wind had pretty much died down around that time but there was a very slight breeze blowing in my direction so i spent that 10 seconds trying to avoid a self-application of saber red fortunately my face shield did its job and i didn't get more than a very light dusting still pretty unpleasant though anyway if you go with a spray you probably want something with a little more pressure 15 bursts are no good if they don't have any range ruger is not the only company making a pepper spray gun the better known product is probably this one the kimber pepper blaster however it is not a spray and it's not a stream either it fires kind of like a blast of oc buckshot it's a double barrel gun like device each barrel has a single charge of oc so you get two shots and that's it there's a little tab here to block the trigger when you're not using it and then you just push that out of the way and you press the trigger the trigger is kind of like a heavy double action it has sights on it and they are accurate at least this one that i tested was you will need to use those sights if your target is beyond a couple of feet because the blast is pretty concentrated the maximum range is supposed to be 13 feet that turned out to be well within its capabilities the first shot got quite a bit of oc directly into the target's face the second shot was not quite as impressive but i still nailed carl right in the eye so it does more or less what it says it can do but i would not use a kimber pepper blaster one thing if you mess with your two shots you're done any of these other devices we tested will give you at least four or five chances if you're firing in short bursts more importantly according to chuck haggard this is one of the only oc devices out there that can actually hurt you there are apparently known cases of people suffering permanent eye damage from kimber pepper blasters oc is supposed to be very low on the use of force spectrum normally you don't have to be real hesitant to deploy it because there is so little risk involved but you're gonna lose the moral and legal high ground pretty quickly if you end up blinding somebody with one of these things okay the last one we have here is actually a bear spray the frontiersman bear attack deterrent it's a big 9.2 ounce canister the nice thing about bear spray is that unlike self-defense spray it is regulated and the contents have to be exactly what they say they are on the can on top of that this frontiersman brand is actually made by sabre so it's probably pretty good stuff obviously this is a lot different than the other products i've reviewed it's not exactly pocket sized and there are a lot of oc products that are larger than the pocket size ones but still much smaller than this one however a lot of those kind of in-between sizes are either only available as a gel or they are typically only sold to law enforcement on the other hand it is really easy to find a large format bare in animal spray like this one i have noticed that with a lot of the bear sprays they will ship with little extra safety devices on them like this one had a zip tie on it those are just for shipping and for storage you need to cut those off right away for this particular unit the safety is this little plastic tab that needs to stay on there until you're ready to use it you just sweep it off with your thumb and then you can press down on the trigger the effective range for the frontiersman bear spray is 35 feet it's supposed to spray continuously for five seconds i actually didn't spray this one continuously i did two short bursts and then a long burst this is the first time i've tested one of these so i wanted to see what a short burst would do and i was pretty impressed fritz was a good sport and stood 35 feet away to be able to empty nine ounces in five seconds this has to have a pretty dense spray it doesn't show up all that well on camera but it pretty much filled the area with a cloud of oc any animal or person or group of people walking through that cloud would get exposed to a lot of oc and just to give you a small idea a full two minutes after i sprayed it there was no visible sign that there was any oc left around so i walked through that area to go get the target and i instantly started coughing and felt like i had sand blowing in my eyes just imagine that turned up like a hundred times for someone who would get the full effect right after it was sprayed okay that's all i've got to say about pepper spray for a while i hope some of that was helpful for you guys if you have any questions be sure to ask chuck haggard especially if it's about wasp and hornet spray [Music] you

Channel: Lucky Gunner Ammo

Views: 213,059

Rating: 4.933198 out of 5

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Id: 6oK1d_tBp9Q

Length: 26min 18sec (1578 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020