I saw a guy shot in the back of the neck at 6' with #8 shot and it knocked him down but not for long! He got up and was wandering around with a ginormous flesh wound on the back of his neck. I never heard what became of him after he went to the hospital. He was mad because it messed up his tattoo. I saw him 10 years later and he had a pretty good scar on the back of his neck. He told me that they treated and released him from the hospital the day he was shot! You cannot reliably count on small pellets to penetrate clothing and into the vitals. You will have to trust me on this. I would not use anything smaller than #4 buck for home defense in LEAD. I would feel ok with BB or T in tungten-iron or lead.
I really didn't know any agencies that used anything other than 00 or 000 buck for police work. There is a good reason.
