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brianm2004,

From one of your earlier posts, I take it that you have an M4? With the right ammo, something frangible, she might be better off with that. She's already familiar with it, she likes it, and as long as you're not using the M855 green tip, it won't have much energy left even if it does penetrate a wall. A shotgun with Birdshot would be the least likely to penetrate a wall, but with light bullets that M4 would be as safe as a pistol inside.

.223/5.56 caliber in a light varmit bullet, 52 or 55 grain.
Bullet design: Hornady VMax, or Sierra 52 or 55gr OTM. The OTM bullet is an open tip match design that looks kind of like a hollowpoint, but really isn't. It does, however, fragment better than most other bullet designs. They are actually designed for shooting in matches as they are very accurate. The VMax is made for shooting small varmits. It has a plastic tip and should fragment pretty well. You could also use Soft-tip bullets which is what some LEOs use, but they don't feed realibly in my M4.

Over-penetration will be a problem with most pistols anyway, so either way you have to be careful of what's behind your target. The M4 wouldn't be as handy as a pistol in a lock-box, but I'm just throwing one more option out there.

-ss