markj, if I tried to do that with DPX, I'd go broke. Either you have more ammo money, or you shoot less, doing it your way.
To each his own.
On a related note, just finished up annual recurrent training at SimuFlite. Using a simulator, we practiced takeoffs from high altitude runways in summer time (Aspen, CO) at max weight, with engine cuts at aircraft rotation. Was it exactly the same as it would be in an airplane? Possibly not, but the risk outweighs the training value if one cuts one of two engines, then tries to snake through the mountain canyons at a 110fpm rate of climb... IE we would never train for this in the airplane, as it would be too dangerous.
Similarly, we wouldn't practice overtorquing the motors, if need be, to climb out a severe windshear - it would be prohibitively expensive. So we simulate severe windshear recoveries in the simulator, where we may find we do have to overtorque the engines if we want to survive.
Theoretically, the training in the simulator should carry over to the aircraft. In practice, decades of simulator training have proven that most such training actually does carry over.
So, I put it to you all that affordable practice ammo, that reasonably mimics your carry load, has training value.