00 Buckshot exhibits more penetration through household building materials than lightly constructed .22-ish cailber ~50 grain slugs at high speed.
I'd say Trent has put a lot of careful thought into what he's using and why. Might not be the same thing you'd decide, but you can't say it's because he's uninformed about performance.
There are probably not many people in North America who have put more rounds down range out of a Five Seven or PS90 under as wide of a range of conditions as I have. I'm not saying this to brag or beat my chest, but rather, to emphasize the point that I *have* done my homework here. While I might not be an expert on *every* firearm out there, on this particular one, I know what I'm talking about.
I also have the advantage of comparing real world ballistics and accuracy with over 100 other firearms in my collection.
While I don't have ALL of the "fun toys" at my disposal, I own a large collection, and I have been blessed in that I have spent the better part of the last 2 decades shooting. I've shot everything from 22's, to various shotguns, to a wide variety of full auto machineguns, ranging from MP5's, to M249 SAWs, to Russian PKM's, to heavy machineguns.
So believe me, when it came time to make the decision on what I keep handy for personal protection of my family, I took the decision very seriously. I have over 100 guns to choose from, from my personal collection, and the budget to buy anything I want to buy (period).
When I chose the PS90 for home defense, it was a decision that was made comparing ALL of the factors - my environment, the composition and tactics of the typical group of "bad guys" in the area, and so on. This selection evolved over time as THEY evolved. The bad guys quit knocking off houses in the city in ones and twos, and started going out in the country in bands of 4 or 5 to take down houses.
Why? Because police response time sucks, there aren't any "nosy neighbors" to dial 9-1-1, the isolation means they control the environment, there are multiple ingress/egress points to get them. They've been hitting houses within a few miles all along the Interstate corridor. Whether they're coming from Chicago, or Peoria, or Springfield, I don't know, but the trend is there, and it is a game changer.
*IF* I ever defend myself in court for using lethal force to protect my family, I have the burden of explaining *all* of my decisions on equipment, training, and tactics I used. I have made these decisions with a lot of thought, and a heck of a lot of documentation backs it all up.
So yes, I could have chose anything.
But I chose what I chose for a reason. High capacity, highly accurate, easy to use, ergonomic, incredibly fast time to target and split times, just the right amount of power and penetration, and extremely reliable operation.
Anyway, you can pick what you want to pick within your budget. If the 5.7 platforms are cost prohibitive there are other great ones to choose from - the 9x19 has a LOT of the same merits as these (high capacity, decent but not too much penetration, etc), and is much more affordable.