@Bigun
At +/- 25 ft, at a moving target, I'll take the spread. Nobody's going to be testifying anyway.
@roamer_1 For home defense there are a couple of considerations. Accessibility and safety are part of the equation. Are there young kids around? Is theft a concern?
After those it becomes a question of ease of use for the individual, stopping power and over penetration.
The first two are obvious but over penetration is a major concern in many areas where the neighbors house is just a few feet away. So unless you want to kill the intruder and your neighbor 3 houses down standing behind his fridge you should think about what you are using.
The 12ga with 00 actually has quite a bit of penetration. In some tests I've seen it would penetrate through 4 sheets of sheet rock set up as simulated walls. Another video shows it going through 5 layers of plywood. So not only could you hit your target but it could also go thru the wall, the next wall and into someone else living in the house.
The 5.56 from an AR15 was the only round that didn't go thru all 4 layers. The light round fragmented after 3 layers and didn't make it thru 4.
Having said all that, my choices are:
1. Mossberg 590A1 tactical 12ga parkerized with ghost ring sites loaded with 4 buck low recoil. Holds 9 in the tube with an additional 4 in the stock.
2. Any of my .45 but I prefer my glock m30 or sig 220, with JHP
3. an ar-15