Target shooting? I guess that depends on the target. I have an ancient Crossman like you want and it does shoot fair. It however does not feel like any handgunI own.
I used a real junker for a bit when I was interested in action type shooting where the targets were the old NRA tombstones or IPSC Florida EIghts. I used one of the old Marksman BB pistols to get used to getting the gun up and on target. It was not accurate enough for practicing NRA bullseye and the trigger pull was horrific, but its grip was shaped like my "real pistol" and it helped me point and get a quick flash sight picture and get a round off and on cardboard. I see to recall the thing cost less than a box of 50 .45ACP rounds and I have no idea how many hundereds of BBs went into a stop box made of an old cardboard box and some old carpet strips and got reused over the three years or so I used it. It seemed to pay off on the firing line with the .45 in action/IPSC style shooting.
I think even smooth bore guns firing BBs like that can be a big help for transitioning to firearms. WHile accuracy is no where near a quality pellet pistol it is good enough. I even like the current crop of CO2 bb pistols as many are semi automatic and so not as boring for most folks who seem to get tired of cocking and loading single rounds for each shot. SOme feel such guns encourage burst shooting of rapid fire to "make Up for" their lack of "real accuracy". I find that if I want to shoot slow and deliberate I can and if I want to develop the skills needed to engage multiple targets quick ly they work fine. Again the triggers are not very good BUT if you can handle those triggers then triggers on firearms are going to be a snap. FOr plinking what can be more fun than chasing an old soda can with 5 to 12 shots as fast as you can line up the sights and pull the trigger? The down side is the need to by CO2 cartridges and the fact they they do not store pierced in the pistols reliably. One of my gun forinstance has held pressure for three weeks on one cartridge, then bled out over night on the next then lasted several days wit the next then over night for the next couple and then well you get the idea.
As a kid a Daisy CO2 200 was a constant companion. WHen I "upgraded " to a RUger RST-4 .22 semiauto in my teens wonder of wonders I shot pretty well with that gun that had a similar shape to the CO2 200 and remarkably after using those two guns for ages which happened to be the guns the army recomended for pre training for the M1911A1 I pretty much picked up a M1911 A1 with out slowing down.
I do think that the gun you are looking at will basically last as long as you take care of it and assuming you get a rifled one that shoots only pellets then it will likely be more accurate than most folks can shoot a pistol so there is nothing wrong with your original choice, but I thought I would throw these thoughts out there.
Shoot safe, shoot legal, and have fun.
-kBob
