What not to do with Bear Spray!

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Dusther210

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At least it was Bear Spray and not Self Defense OC spray. Never stand downwind and try to find something that isn't fogging. Streams and gels are much less likely to get blown back in your face when deployed. But I'm not even sure if they offer bear spray in anything but fogger type.
 
PCO6

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Tommys said:
Hey, that is a fitted one! The one I have is loosy goosy. Thanks for the heads up.
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It's a nice tight fit and you can deploy the canister without having to remove it from the holster, not that I've ever had to ... yet!
 
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MuckSavage

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I don't know if they still do it, but some brands of Bear Spray came with a "practice cannister". It was a non-harmful aerosol in the same canister as the real deal. Idea was to use the practice canister to learn the deployment of the "real deal". There are countless accounts of folks shooting themselves.
 
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lhoffm4

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MuckSavage said:
I don't know if they still do it, but some brands of Bear Spray came with a "practice cannister". It was a non-harmful aerosol in the same canister as the real deal. Idea was to use the practice canister to learn the deployment of the "real deal". There are countless accounts of folks shooting themselves.
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I remember when the stun guns started becoming available to the public and I bought one for my wife. I took it to work to “show the fellas”. One of my coworkers wanted to try it out. I guess he completely forgot about his steel-toe boots and zapped himself in the foot with it. He may still be walking with a twitch.
 
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bryceCtravels

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Tommys said:
Hey guys, there is a saying that you can't teach something if you don't know it. Well, during the initial camping spot of our Central USA Adventure we start with a hard lesson. Accidental bear spray deployment in our tent!
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Sounds fun! I was hiking Mt Sneffels in CO, snow was waist deep. Bear spray in hand as I was solo. Fell over, safety clip came out, sprayed my face. If I didn’t have sunglasses on I don’t know if I would’ve made it (or wanted to)! My water pouch tasted like pepper for the next 3 weeks.
 
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brycercampbell said:
Sounds fun! I was hiking Mt Sneffels in CO, snow was waist deep. Bear spray in hand as I was solo. Fell over, safety clip came out, sprayed my face. If I didn’t have sunglasses on I don’t know if I would’ve made it (or wanted to)! My water pouch tasted like pepper for the next 3 weeks.
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That's funny and terrible at the same time. It sounds like you survived and made it back safely.
 
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ChasingOurTrunks

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Thanks for sharing your experience @Tommys -- that seems like an unfortunate mistake that is easy to make, so hopefully many will learn from it. Main thing is I'm glad you and your family are OK and have a story to tell out of the experience.

On a related note, on our trip this summer we purchased new bear spray as our old stuff was flirting with it's approved shelf life. We decided to use our old bear spray to practice with it, so we'd be more comfortable and familiar in an emergency. We learned two things:

1) It can be hard to translate the "range" on the can into real world environments. We found that essentially, the bear has to be violating Social Distancing protocols if you're gonna hit 'em with a spray (at least the cans we had). So that means the bar for spraying an angry bear is at the same range as my bar for saying "Excuse me sir, can you give me a bit more space" in the grocery store line at the outset of the pandemic. That's not very far away! But it's good to know, because in a panic your liable to shoot your spray way, way too early in a real situation.

2) The contents of the spray is typically a very hot capsaicin substance suspended in oil. Because of this, hand washing with regular soap and water might not do a good enough job getting it off. You have to use Dawn dish soap (i.e. something that cuts grease) or some other solvent to truly get this stuff off your hands, and even if you don't spray yourself, odds are it will dribble a bit from the nozzle and you might get some on you. If you don't use dish soap, that's OK because your body has a natural alarm that it will trigger to let you know you still have bear spray on your hands. The alarm typically goes off on your next bathroom trip and it lasts a long time. That's all the details I'll provide on my experience, but just trust me -- use dish soap after spraying this stuff.
 
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Wife and I are walking down the trail when we come across a hiker decked out with every gadget know to man. He is stopped and has a very concerned look on his face. Then informs us that there is a snake on the trail. Just as we are about to suggest let it be and go around he whips out his trusty bear spray!! Takes aim and let it go, right into a nice breeze coming our way. We mange to get out of the way but gadget man is rolling on the ground yelling get my Osprey. Your what? My Osprey! my Osprey!, it has water in it! Oh your backpack, I reply. We got the poor guy some water and suggested next time stomp the ground and the vibration will move the snake along. We still laugh about that today.
 
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