Slugs and buck make great engagement ammo, but are you planning on using these as home defense? Most will easily penetrate multiple walls making in the house defense use very dangerous.

Personally I load #4 shot for use in the house defense. At ranges under 20' it acts like a slug on soft body but only penetrates 1 wall and looses almost all its energy.

Loading #4 is as easy as bird shot and almost as cheap. Using a bag of shot purchased many moons ago these shells only cost me about $3.00/ box of 25

As far as slugs go, I love the 3" Federal Hi-Shok sabot slug (hourglass shape) They were probably the hardest hitting slug ever made. The front mushroomed but with the hourglass shape the back just kept pushing through similar to the Nosler Partition, Swift A-frame rifle bullets.

I even took and elk with one.

My other favorite slug is the Remington Copper Solid.