I wish there was a U-Tube video that showed an experienced hand shooting an R9 - so I could see the way they gripped the gun. Instead, there is a video of an old guy grimmacing after each shot, and two young midwestern guys complaining about the recoil of the R9 - you know these two: "oohh Tad, I would rather shoot a caskil 454" or with two shots left "oohh Tad, do I haave to"? (he was complaining about having to shoot the last two rounds)
I remember seeing those two videos as well - they actually gave me an (unnecessary) pause about buying an R9 at first. But then I also found this video of Karl shooting the R9 - I think Karl knows how to shoot it pretty durn well!
http://www.thingameez.com/vid-download/r9-karl-demo.wmv
Candidly I sort of enjoy giving my R9 to a friend or shooting buddy just to watch their reaction - which almost invariably ends up less like Karl and more like those two videos you reference. I think this supports what Douglas posted - that many people aren't really shooters and the R9 performs for those who are (and penalizes those who are not - at least a little bit).
The Karl video is a good one. Illustrative.
To be clear: It's my view that an "experienced" shooter
can be recoil sensitive. I mean, why not? One might just "not prefer" a heavy recoiling pistol. The difference would be that from your experience you would
know your own preferences.
My take is that the R9 might
surprise inexperienced hands. I mean, people blast away on TV and in the movies, full-auto, one hand, etc. If that is one's frame of reference, lighting off a full-house 9mm in a 13 oz. pistol might be eye-opening.
An experienced shooter will be much less likely to be surprised. He will, in ballpark terms at least, know what to expect. Now, even an experienced shooter might then decide: "This is not for me, there's too much recoil." but I don't think you'd see the melodramatic exclamations from that shooter that we see in the confounding videos.
-AND... it is my opinion that the R9 just does not fall into that recoil category for
nearly anyone. Based on
my experience, I think those videos are largely some combination of inexperience and affectation. Mostly the latter. -Gun goes off and shooter says, "WHOOOOAAAAAAAA!!!" because it's fun to say. Out of all proportion. Some people do it when they smell something unpleasant; you know the type. -Same thing.
I've fired some big game calibre handguns, and handed them back to their owners with a, "Thank you. That's not one I'm going to need." I was never surprised that Newton's laws applied however.
