Recoil velocity plays a very major role in how one can handle recoil. This is how people manage to shoot the Really Big Guns. Some of them have tremendous Recoil Energy, but their heavy weight keeps the recoil velocity down to a manageable level.
Take two guns of different weights & shoot loads which both produce say 20 Ft Lbs of free recoil energy, but the lighter one gives 16 fps recoil velocity & the heavy one gives 12 fps. In spite of the fact the produce the exact same recoil energy the higher recoil velocity of the light gun will "Kick" you a lot worse.
