Little-Known Reloading Phenomena
I discovered this during an extended session of prepping brass and reloading. I had approximately 2500 fired 9mm cartridges and had spent weeks sorting them by headstamp and then resizing, depriming them, neck expanding and then priming. Then I loaded them all. It was a massive undertaking using my old RCBS Rockchucker. I handled each piece of brass at least 7 times during the entire reloading process (and it was 8 or 9 times with some) which adds up to handling at least 17,500 pieces of brass.
Finishing I felt like I had run a marathon! As I cleaned up and reorganized the loading bench I ran across a massive rifle cartridge that I did not recognize. I wracked my brain but could not remember having such a HUGE cartridge in my collection! Wondering what it was and where it came from I picked it up and looked at the headstamp. It read: "WW Winchester .30-30"!!!!
That put my head into a spin for a bit. Then I picked up another huge cartridge that turned out to be a .45 Colt!
I finally figured out that weeks of handling the little bitty 9mm cartridges had gotten my brain into a rut thinking that the small round was "normal" and thus any of the cartridges that I used "normally" looked abnormal.
I told Mic McPherson about it and he shared a story about a similar experience that he had. I am sure it's common but since I don't mess with the little cartridges all that much it had a real impact on me.
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Ele era velho.
Ele era corajoso.
Ele era feio.
The phenomena is called 'normalcy bias'.
by Miles 
, CIVITATES AMERICAE, Wednesday, February 07, 2024, 12:49 (288 days ago) @ JimT
It's how 'habits' are formed. What's weird is that it usually happens only in one direction.
When I was learning SCUBA diving at Fort Lewis, the instructor told us we would discover this phenomenon after we had done nothing but night dives for several weeks.
You would become so accustomed to it that going back to dive during daylight, everything would feel really 'strange' and to expect it
Same when handling small brass for so long. The mind considers that 'normal' and then, like you noticed, freaks out dealing with big stuff.
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Esse sine metu in facie inimici tui. Sit fortis et rectus quod Deus ut amo te. Veritatem dico semper etiam si eam ducit ad mortem tuam. Tuendam inops et facere no mali.
Little-Known Reloading Phenomena
by Slow Hand 
, Indiana, Thursday, February 08, 2024, 08:11 (287 days ago) @ JimT
I have had that happen but in reverse. I was loading up some .45 colts then went to load some .32 mags. Those little 98gr .314’s felt like I was loading needles! As my brother says, it’s all about perspective…