I'm gonna go with drifter on this, an IC is a good way to go.

Ive seen some "cylinder" chokes, shoot better than "mod". Some "full", shoot better than "IC", and all inbetween.
No two shotguns I ever had shot buckshot the same. Some string, some throw off to one side, some just do weird stuff.
In the home, with distances measured in feet, I doubt the spread would open up much between all of them though.

What in the world you talking about. MD, NJ, several others allow it.

That said, I hate the stuff. I won't use it again on deer, especially sika deer. They use it here for sika deer jumpin in the swamps. Almost like rabbit huntin. You usually see a volley of shots taking down a 80lb deer. The few time I participated in such a hunt I used slugs. And I was the guy who actually had to take the deer down with one shot as they were unloading thier shotguns.

Deer was unedible at best. I guess the nimrod who took credit for the kill just ground it. I didn't want it after that.

I'd probably opt for smaller shot for home defense. I'd rather save my bigscreen from passthroughs