I've recently discovered a hidden attribute unique to each weapon that affects the time to recover sight picture in between shots. This is independent of the vertical recoil stat shown on the stat page.
For my test, I compared an MP9-N (49 vertical recoil) with a Saiga-9 (25 vertical recoil). I took screenshots of frames 1, 4, 11, and 20 to showcase the difference:
Frame 1: (both shots started aiming at the same point on the metal target, the Saiga looks like it's aimed higher here because of VFR shenanigans in the source video)
Frame 4: (we see the MP9 kicked higher, as expected)
Frame 11: (the MP9 has nearly returned to it's original sight picture on the targets head, while the Saiga is still clearly floating above)
Frame 20: (the Saiga finally returns near it's original sight picture)
I'll post the video when I figure out the best way to share video on reddit, but from the pictures above we see that a gun with ~twice the vertical recoil returns to it's original sight picture in ~half the frames.
When it comes to semi-auto fire, the height your reticle climbs during a recoil cycle isn't nearly as important as the time it takes to fall back down to it's original location – I'd be curious to see if such drastic differences exist among the higher-powered DMRs. This may be a new way we can understand why some weapons "feel" like better shooters than others, despite objectively worse stat lines.
