It's all relative.

Ifones main "go to" rifle is a 270Win, thenone sure doesn't want to think of it as a "pop gun".

If you use a wide range of rifles and cartridges from small to large and have hunting experience with all of them, then for big game, IMHO many folks will see the .270Win starting to"fall" towards "pop gun" status rather quickly compared to some of the other larger, more powerful stuff, which by the way I have never found difficult to shoot.

Either we are the world's largest nation of whimps or the "recoil" thing is way overstated.