Last weekend a neighbor tested out my VZ2008 with me, and encountered bad cheek slap (I, oddly enough, was unaffected, but I must have a rock-like face, or something
). Fortunately, CAI was forward-thinking enough to make the brake very easily removable by hand, so I screwed it off, and... presto-change, the rifle runs just like a D-Technik in terms of recoil.
Seeing as the guns are identical in every way except for .25" of barrel and the brake, it's pretty obvious the brake is the problem. CAI really needs to stop selling the rifles with them and instead have flat-cut "thread protectors" put on at the least.
On an AK where the weight is so much farther forward, it makes more sense that a brake would be needed to control the muzzle (and your cheek has a much longer moment arm to the center of mass). On the VZ, the brake causes the muzzle to go
down, and the rifle to pivot around its center of mass nearer the mag well, punching the stock up into your face. It happens on the fixed-stock versions too, I hear.
TCB