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Always remember that three things manage the recoil of a given cartridge in a firearm -- the design of the firearm, the weight of the firearm and the shooter. New shooters or those who are recoil-sensitive need to consider the physics involved and look at gun design and weight as desired features.

Simple blowback designs, all else being equal, will have a greater felt recoil impulse than gas- or recoil-operated designs (and they typically have pretty stiff recoil springs). For this reason, many of the blowback guns are a bit top-heavy with a heavier slide than recoil-operated counterparts to help mitigate recoil. Recoil operated designs, use the additional weight of the barrel and the friction involved in camming that barrel out of position with the slide and then back into it to mitigate the recoil impulse a bit. This allows for a lighter recoil spring and a lighter slide than blowback arms but some of these, like the P3AT, LCP, etc... are so small and light that the gun becomes a bit snappy even with a relatively mild cartridge like the 380ACP.

A gun that weighs more recoils less -- after all, basic physics tells us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. THink about swinging a hammer to drive a nail. You can drive a framing nail with a 10 ounce hammer, but you can drive it far easier using a 16 - 20 ounce hammer because the weight of the hammer is doing more of the work. Similarly, the heavier gun dissipates more of the recoil force than the lighter one so that the user doesn't get hit with as much of it -- felt recoil is less.