There are two things that mitigate the felt recoil on an AA-12.
One is the weight, about 12 lbs empty, and the other is the 'constant recoil' principle where due to the quite long recoil spring the bolt carrier never impacts on the receiver while in recoil.
The drawback to the AA-12, is that you don't want to be hauling one over hill and dale all day. Fifteen pounds loaded with one drum is weighty, and there's no good way to reduce how much space the package takes up.
With a 20-round drum it's over 8 inches wide. You can reduce that to about 3 with a 10-round stick magazine but now you have to deal with something that's 14 inches tall. Either way, it makes going through doors or operating from a vehicle rather ...... difficult.
Take a couple 2x4's about a foot long (to simulate 2 magazines) or a few 3-inch thick, 8-inch diameter blocks of wood, and stick them in your favorite ammunition carrying method. It quickly becomes apparent that these things are not really suitable for close, mobile operations.
Do I speak from experience?
With an AA-12, no; as there are none in civilian hands. However I am a fanboy of the idea enough that back in 1991 I did purchase a USAS-12, quite similar in weight and bulk to the AA-12. I even tried it in a few competitions. I went back to conventional designs, the tradeoff's just were not worth the extra ammunition you could carry. Plus, you can keep a conventional design topped up, which is something you can't do with a USAS or AA-12
