[Sevens]

The best way to find the lightest recoil is to address the things that cause recoil. The biggest factor in felt recoil is typically the weight of the gun from which you are sending the bullet. After that, it's things like bullet weight, bore axis and the pressure of the round.

The bigger and heavier you can go with the handgun, the less felt recoil you'll have. If it's at all possible, I would go with a medium frame, 4-inch barreled .38 Special or .357 Magnum revolver, loaded with .38 Special ammo. I know that Federal makes a reduced recoil 110-grain .38 Special load that would probably be pretty manageable from a heavy revolver.

If you end up with a sub-caliber (.22, .25, .32), I would leave you with this: the .25 auto is a really, really poor choice, the worst of any, IMO. What you get with the .25 is performance that's very little or no better than .22, at an ammo cost that's so staggering, you literally will NOT believe the difference in price between the two. Furthermore, there are horribly small choices in .25 caliber guns, the options are extremely limited and all the guns are pretty much the same size as the .25 that your friend owns.

With a .22, sizes range from pocket gun sized to full-sized and too-large to carry. Get a medium sized .22 and you'll be holding 8 or perhaps 10 rounds of ammo.