Until I started shooting an AR in matches for six months out of the year my go to was a pump shotgun.
Practice and familiarity makes a big difference.
Practice and familiarity makes a big difference.
A test with more realistic walls and spacing:I note, though, that your walls were only one sheet thick. The typical interior wall is hollow, with sheetrock on both sides -- so the four-wall test is really a two-wall test.
Regardless, you have made your point. A 5.56 or a load of 00 buck will penetrate the wall behind the bad guy, transit the next room, and go through that wall into the room behind that one.
Both buckshot and 5.56mm will go through a single layer of drywall. But from everything I've seen on the topic, buckshot will go through more layers of drywall than 5.56 will.On another thread, "Does an M14 turn cover into concealment" all sorts of things are being said about how great an AR 15 penetrates.
You can shoot through dry wall with a .22 LR -- a .223 will definitely go through drywall.
Whichever one I can shoot fastest and most accurately.which one would you rather have to give up to the police as evidence, after a self defense shooting?
sure you canYou cannot intelligently choose one or the other, without being proficient with both.
Get trained and make your choice. Then you can tell everyone on this forum what you chose and why.