re: Target Shooting?

You need to cycle enough of your defensive ammunition of choice through your pistol to ensure that it will consistently feed, fire, and eject it. The last thing you want is to practice with nothing but target ammo only to have your pistol jam in the heat of the moment because it doesn't like to feed your chosen HP rounds.

Fire enough of your defensive rounds to get comfortable with their reliability in your specific pistol. After that, switch to target ammunition (though it's still a good idea to run a magazine of your defensive ammo through it every once in a while to ensure continued proper function).

And yes, target ammo will be perfectly fine to acquaint and familiarize yourself with the function and recoil of your pistol.