Yes, small amount of recoil and a consistent tight pattern clip after clip. Somewhere I posted a pic where I shot through the mouth of a beer can and out the bottom. I can do that regularly with that gun and no others I own.

I'm not sure what you mean by background, but in general one carries an automatic with an empty chamber, especially a woman who may be tossing it around in a purse. In order to fire the gun, you have to "jack" the slide by hand the first time to chamber a shell. The spring on most automatic slides is difficult for a woman to master, and when you consider she will need it most when she is under the most stress, it's just not a good idea for her to depend on something she only gets right on a 50% basis. With a revolver, you pull the trigger and it fires. Hammerless, and it won't snag in a purse and fire inadvertently.