No equipment list for F-Class; part of the 'high power' roots. Match directors rarely attempt to collect them; half the shooters either won't fill 'em out or fudge the information. Word of mouth from talking with people in the pits and on the line is about all you get in this sport.
I believe Danny Biggs was shooting B185s again this year; I think Jeff Rorer was running the B185BTs. A few other people were running them as well. Shawn Ahrens was running S175MKs (again), and I can't recall if Emil Praslick was running 175s or 190s in that stubby little 22" barrel he used. Not sure what Michelle Gallagher was using; Darrell Buell was running B155VLDs still. Not sure about Sauve or Paul Phillips or Derek Rodgers.
155s are really easy to get running and shooting very well in a lot of guns and several tons of them have been thrown down range through Palma & TR rifles so there is a huge 'base' of experience with the loads out there; but there are a lot of other options out there that all work pretty well and as mentioned elsewhere, the .308 is pretty well 'mapped' out over the years. Some of the new bullets and powders give some opportunities to re-visit things that may have been tested in the past and see maybe they are worth pursuing further.
The 185-190gr bullets are a good example... I've talked with a number of Palma shooters and coaches in the past who have shot or coached 190s alongside 155s (the old Sierra 2155 'flying brick' specifically, not the newer high-speed low-drag models) and decided the heavies weren't worth the extra recoil and/or barrel life issues as they'd come off the line with 1/2 moa or less of wind difference between the two. On a 1-moa X / 2-moa 10-ring... probably not as significant on a LR center as on a LR-FC target. IMO, you have to be able to call the wind pretty fine to be able to benefit from that directly; on the other hand a scratch ten is better than a close 9. If you shoot at the level where dropping a point or two here and there is making the difference between match winner or several places down at a big event... it might be worth it.
The people I talk with now using the heavier bullets aren't citing so much a gross wind advantage in a heavy, steady wind (which can be 'read' and corrected for to a surprising degree with some experience), as the bullet being a little less 'twitchy' in more unstable conditions where you see a lot of sudden changes with the mirage running one way, stop/boil, run again, boil, reverse, etc.
I've got several boxes of B185BTs and B210BTs down on the loading bench for testing (after I put the gun away for at least a month and go do something - anything - else for a while); I've also got about 5000 B155.5BTs and S155MKs sitting here as well. I'm willing to try new things... but 155s do work *really* well.
