At Nationals in Lodi last month, I did end up checking fired brass from virtually all of the F-T/R competitors. No one failed. There was initially some discussion with the match officials about whether or not to check competitor's brass. Their position (and there is some validity here) was that they did not want to get to a point where the rule book was 3 feet thick, with 170 odd competitors. They did agree to let people "voluntarily" check their brass with either myself or Mike Miller. To people's credit, when they saw that we were checking, almost all of the competitors came up and let me check.
I will be working with the NRA to make the brass checks mandatory for future Nationals (and World Championships when they are in the US). This is another way to make sure that the level playing field that most people get into F-T/R for, STAYS level. Pursuant to this, we also need to make sure that the scales used to weigh the rifles are properly calibrated. It was widely rumored that the scales used in Lodi were VERY generous (I think I could have driven my truck onto the weighing pan and it would have weighed in at less than 8.25 Kg!) LOL.
I do sympathize with the match directors, it IS a hassle to do all of the checks. With the top end of the F-T/R field getting so competitive though, the temptation to modify a chamber, or run a heavy rifle to gain that 1-2% advantage will be getting much stronger. Keeping the discipline a pure shooter vs. shooter game, instead of an equipment gaming contest is in everyone's interests. To get an idea how close the field is, the top 15 places in F-T/R this year had less than 2% difference in score.
Good Shooting,
Darrell