In reply to The Ex-Engineer:
> (In reply to anomm) As regards the bulk of my wires, my racking carabiners (Petzl Spirit Bent Gates) are by far the oldest carabiners I own and pretty much the most expensive I've ever bought.
>
> As Ian says, find something you like and get on with, they are arguably the most important carabiners you will ever buy.
>
> I can also testify to using them for runners and belays on numerous occasions.
I'll go with all of this as sound advice.
I used oval wires but would happily use a variety of other Karabiners. DMM Specre2 are very good option, as they have a wide base, are quite lightweight, available in 7 different colours and currently very good value for money:
http://www.needlesports.com/Catalogue/Rock-Climbing-Equipment/Karabiners/St...
I also think it is a good idea to have more krabs with less wires on as they're easier to handle. Four krabs with 6 wires each on is much less likely to get tangled than 3 krabs with 8 wires each on.
My normally wire rack is:
Krab 1: Doubles of rocks 1-3
Krab 2: Double of rock 4-6
Krab 3: Doubles of rock 7 and 8, plus a single 9 and 10.
I then have a further krab of 8 brass micros that get taken on harder things.
At particually wire intensive venues/routes (Pembroke, Millstone, Left Wall) I'll add an additional krabs of wires in sizes 3-7.
>
> However, I rack my smallest micro wires on a small Troll Nano wiregate accessory krab to save weight but that is the exception as they are only occasionally carried as a 4th krab of wires. That said, I started doing that when Prowires at 36g were the lightest krabs in the world, but these day it would make more sense to use something like a Camp Nano or an Edelrid 19g.
This is also sound advice except the choice of karabiner. I would speculate that the poster has never held an Edelrid 19 in the flesh. They are far too small and fiddily to use as as a racking krab. The only use I could have for one on my rack is for things like racking my nutkey, prussiks, guidebook holder and trainers. At present however I just use old, (found) snap gates for this job so I can abseil off them if needs be.
The Camp Nano or Metoluis Mini would be good choice of krab for racking micros.
> I also rack my ice screws on non-load bearing krabs but that is fairly standard and the modern purpose designed clippers are MORE expensive than normal krabs, not less.
I did this for a while, but these days I prefer to rack them on large wire gates like Oval wires. I don't see the point in carrying karabiners that aren't fully rated as you can't use them for anything else (building belays, abseiling off).
I might use plastic krabs for ice cragging, but I wouldn't bother in scotland or the alps.
HTH