Question
Starter content written by the Rangium team to seed the community.
Your friend has a point but it's overstated. Practice 95% of the time with FMJ of similar weight, then shoot a box or two of your actual carry load periodically to confirm zero and reliability.
The non-negotiable part is reliability testing. You need to KNOW your gun runs your carry ammo. Shoot at least 50-100 rounds of it before trusting it.
Match the bullet weight of your practice ammo to your carry load as closely as you can and the recoil/POI difference shrinks a lot. That's the cheap fix.
I shoot a box of carry ammo every few months, rotate it, and confirm POI. The rest of the time it's bulk FMJ. Totally reasonable balance.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Trigger time with cheap ammo beats hoarding expensive ammo you never shoot.