Today we are reviewing two of the major manufacturers of defensive sprays: Mace and Sabre brands. We will give you some background on each of these outstanding companies and delve into several of their products. They are both leaders in the self-defense products industry, but one is much more widely recognized than the other.
Before you read today’s article we strongly suggest you read our other article entitled "Pepper Spray Everything You Need To Know" that contains important information about pepper sprays including what the major ingredients in defensive spray are, what the most common specifications are, information on how to gauge how potent a pepper spray is and some of the most common frequently asked questions (FAQ).
That article also includes information on what the effects of being sprayed are. Anyone who has gone through military basic training or trained to be a police officer has come in contact with pepper spray and knows firsthand how debilitating it can be.
Okay, back to today’s article comparing Mace and Sabre brand defensive sprays.
According to the online encyclopedia, Mace Defensive Spray was first invented in 1965 by Alan Littman after a friend of his wife, Doris, was mugged on the streets of Pittsburgh. Doris and Alan started discussing how a woman might use a self-defense tool so they began running experiments in their house.
Alan was a successful inventor who began running experiments on animal intelligence which may explain why he kept an alligator in his basement. In his early career, he submitted patents for a bacon cooker, a waterless egg cooker, and an infrared nursing bottle heater none of which met with any success.
After the mugging of Doris’ friend, the experiments for a self-defense aerosol spray continued until 1964, when he filed an application for a patent on an “assailant incapacitator”. That was the official start of the commercial pepper spray business. The rest, as they say, is history. The original CN teargas Mace formula has long since been discontinued because of its toxicity.
While his patent applications were still pending, in 1966, he accepted an offer from Smith & Wesson to buy out the company. But he became their director of nonlethal weaponry research for their two biggest markets: law enforcement and private consumers.
On October 16, 1967, the largest anti-Vietnam War protest was held in the San Francisco area in downtown Oakland. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, it may be the first public use of Mace for crowd control.
Sabre brand is the brainchild of Security Equipment Corporation, a family owned and operated business that manufacturers pepper spray and other safety products. Their history is not nearly as colorful as Mace brand and they are not nearly as widely known mostly because their products were first introduced and used by law enforcement. They made the transition into the civilian market with the company’s slogan of “making grown men cry since 1975.”
Their products are used by such notable customers as the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Marshals Office, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, N.Y.P.D., U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons and several other national police forces including New Zealand, Israel, and Scandinavia.
Pepper spray is also known as OC spray, short for oleoresin capsicum, which is the main ingredient in all pepper sprays today. It is a chemical compound that is very effective at making the eyes close and causing pain-excruciating pain. It has been used for crowd control by law enforcement, but the main use for law enforcers is in criminal apprehension. It has become the number one self-defense product in the world mostly because it is inexpensive and legal to use in all 50 United States.
Since Mace brand was the original company for pepper sprays it makes sense that they were also first in specialty products. They were the first pepper spray introduced as a defense against dog attacks. They were also the first brand to incorporate pepper gel. Their “triple action” formula was also the first to combine oleoresin capsicum, a teargas component and an ultraviolet marking dye for identification of an assailant. Of all the major manufacturers of pepper spray, Mace was the first to introduce a long-range solution-the Mace pepper gun-which could shoot up to 25 feet away. Most pepper sprays have a range of 6 to 12 feet.
Sabre brand brags on their Spitfire pepper spray that is billed as the most compact and fastest deploying pepper spray available. It is designed to shoot from the hip or over the shoulder with less effort and aim with greater accuracy. It uses refillable canisters.
As far as we know, Sabre brand is the only company that clearly states their measurement of major capsaicinoids (MC or CMC) as their measure of hotness. In our opinion, that is the true heat bearing and pain producing components of a pepper spray and the only true way to measure it. Most other brands measure hotness as the percentage of oleoresin capsicum or some other mythical measurement all made up to fool the consumer. Maybe that’s why Sabre brand is consistently chosen by law enforcement as their pepper spray of choice.
Both brands have catered to the needs of the female market by offering a wide variety of their sprays in pink. They also have a big selection of keychain pepper sprays.
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