Ted Bier Lets Us In A Little

Yes, Ted is an excellent natural shot, and he's combined that with some of the highest quality equipment and practice, practice, practice and more practice. Lastly, the geeky stuff is incredible. When you shoot enough rounds to determine that 830 fps is more stable than 850 fps, and that coefficient of the wind blowing at a 45 degree angle is 7 when compared to a 90 degree wind, and how to use it, shows some serious work.

​Two hours a day, shooting in all weather to get used to crazy winds. Thousands of trigger pulls so the gun is well broken in and he knows exactly how it will react in any condition. Yes, someone that puts in that kind of time deserves to win, he earned it.
 
I know I got into airguns because of Ted, he is a class act.
There are a (very) few good airguns video bloggers but he is definitly the best. I've learned so much from what he says. It's not usual to see someone so willing to share knowledge like Ted, it´s refreshing.
I can tell that he doesn't like the obligation to do videos, he does them when he really has something that he would like to share, otherwise he would be just another guy with a commercial agenda.
All I can say is thanks and keep those videos coming, even far apart.
 
A true class act.
To reveal his strategy only demonstrates his true passion and enthusiasm for progressing the sport, the industry, and overall enjoyment of airgunning. 
His video serves as a call, perhaps a challenge even: "To other competitive shooters, here's what I [Ted] did. You think you can do this? Here's how I did it, try to beat [Ted] me!"
I'm going to echo what many have said, truly an inspiration. A fine example of what competition in general should look like. Motivation-> preparation-> competition-> success-> sportsmanship with personal enjoyment throughout. 
Bravo Mr. Bier, bravo.
 
"Bstalder85"A true class act.
To reveal his strategy only demonstrates his true passion and enthusiasm for progressing the sport, the industry, and overall enjoyment of airgunning. 
His video serves as a call, perhaps a challenge even: "To other competitive shooters, here's what I [Ted] did. You think you can do this? Here's how I did it, try to beat [Ted] me!"
I'm going to echo what many have said, truly an inspiration. A fine example of what competition in general should look like. Motivation-> preparation-> competition-> success-> sportsmanship with personal enjoyment throughout. 
Bravo Mr. Bier, bravo.
+1!!!! Very well said! Like you and others mentioned: it's inspirational to see his willingness and openness to share his trade"secrets".

Mr. Ted Bier I salute you! 
 
As for revealing his methodology, I don't think he has much to worry about as far as people replicating it. It came down to practice, two hours a day and sometimes, 6 hours on weekends. If he practices for a year, probably a minimum of 750 hours of practice. Then the equipment, the Impact goes for just under $1900, nice scope, he sprung for his own compressor, extra air bottles and thousands of pellets that aren't cheap, we're talking probably $6K or 8K for an investment, so this was truly a dedication I won't match.

That also means, if you throw out the investment, and if he only spent 750 hours in practice, that $5000 prize breaks down to a bit over $6.50 an hour for pay. Lousy pay. No, I won't duplicate his dedication. The prize is his, he earned it.

I am enjoying the videos though. The first one, 
is good, the second video, 
give a great deal of information on his gun and how he thinks. Eliminating fliers is critical to competition.

Looking forward to third video, that ought to be very educational.

 
"Saltlake58".....Then the equipment, the Impact goes for just under $1900, nice scope, he sprung for his own compressor, extra air bottles and thousands of pellets that aren't cheap, we're talking probably $6K or 8K for an investment, so this was truly a dedication I won't match.
....That also means, if you throw out the investment, and if he only spent 750 hours in practice, that $5000 prize breaks down to a bit over $6.50 an hour for pay. Lousy pay. No, I won't duplicate his dedication. The prize is his, he earned it........

Funny, I was thinking the about same thing regarding the $5000 first place check - he probably spent way more than that in equipment and pellets trying to win. And you also added the time it took. Time away from family and losing points towards his father of the year aspirations. With that much time commitment shooting, father of the year wasn't happening.

But I am 100% glad he won. He had a lot of desire to win. What's his motivation in 2017?
 
"Percula"
"zebra"
"Percula"Being that I shot at the same range that the EBR is held, I can agree with Ted's take on the winds 100%. Something he didn't mention with the winds... when its coming directly from the front or behind you, in addition to the swings you get up and down drafts/currents that significantly change POI. So you not only have left/right drift measured in several inches at 100m, but you have up/down push of several inches. When the winds are crosswise to the shooting lanes you get a lot less of that and the vertical drift more or less stabilizes. 

Also I wouldn't count on having a favorable wind switch during your match. Some days the winds changes between every shot, some days its pretty much the same for hours on end. Mid October here is kind of a transitional time of year/season for us. We are moving out of the summer monsoon season where the pattern is for calm(er) winds in the morning and building during the day along with T-storm formation. To the winter pattern that tends to have morning winds that get calmer during the day till about sundown when we get little increase before it more or less goes calm.
But he won...
What is that supposed to mean? I add information from a local that shots on the range regularly... I assume it's a negative response yet again to something I've posted, I swear I think you are a troll.
Calm down Mr angry... just saying that you can't argue with the man's approach because he won so whatever he's doing is working. I'd take the win over the theory any day.
 
"Regal_US"What's really interesting is to look at the qualifying round scores at 75 yards, in light of Ted's video and his comments about practice, practice, practice, and reading the wind. Several shooters who did really well at 75 yards (some well known leaders in industry) fared badly in the match at 100 yards.

As many others have posted: Ted's generosity in sharing his technique is exceeded only by his shooting skills!

I went from a very inexpensive springer to a Daystate Regal, based entirely on Ted's Holdover review of this rifle, and at the time this seemed like a huge risk in $. Little did i know where this would lead, with different calibers, better scopes, tricked out rifles etc. AOA should be paying Ted a retainer for all he does to bring people into the sport.

His win at EBR is well deserved and I look forwards to seeing videos 2 and 3 in the how to win series.
Do you have a theory on why some of the leaders in the industry did ok at 75 yards but lost it at 100?

In my (very) limited experience of shooting at 100 yards, I found it a lot more difficult than going from 50 to 75 yards. It looks really far and you can hardly even see that little target without your scope. There is a lot more to it than rezeroing your scope, point and shoot at that distance. It can feel almost like trying aim with artilery with those steep trajectories.

Perhaps it is as simple as the fact that many of the people who usually participate in sanctioned matches might not be used to long range shooting. They compete at much closer range so perhaps they didn't put in the hours at 100 yards. Or maybe Ted's hunting background helped. The most difficult shots I take are trying to hit squirrels or chipmunks at 75-100 yards when they jump around, hide and camouflage in the trees. A static white target can't be harder than that...

I think it is a fair comment that the longer the range, the more shooting skills play a part. You need an accurate gun and a good rest etc but It's about practice, technique, reading the wind, making a smart ammo choice to win.

The thing I love about it is how he defied convention by winning using a bullpup and the smaller caliber. A lot of people who consider themselves to be "real target shooters" put their noses up at bullpups as if there is something that makes them intrinsically less accurate than rifles. So... in your face bullpup haters! 

I particularly like that it wasn't any type of $3,000 +target gun that won too. I am looking forward to seeing the tuning video. 

One question I have is around what he said about the benefits of using less power (I.e. Slower pellet speeds). My understanding is that ST barrels do better at slightly slower speeds than traditional rifled barrels. It makes sense that there would be a difference if ST barrels put less spin on the pellets. I wonder if his advice is specific to the Impact or FX guns, or if he is telling all of us that our groups would improve if we dropped the hst to output 820fps instead of 920fps?

I usually shoot the 25 cal heavies in the 830-850 range but that's mainly because my guns are set up for 25-28gr pellets at 915-930fps.
 
I love his honesty. And the fact that he is willing to share his secrets (unlike most competitive people). I also enjoyed his explanation of why he decided to shoot when the wind was blowing from the side.

I didn't get to practice very much last year, but I still pulled off a 7th place finish in Pro Class. I'm pleased with the results, but of course I want to do better.

Thanks for the tip Ted, I'm looking forward to another great competition this year.
 
Ted's comments about shooting in different wind conditions reminds me of the half or dozen or so prairie dog shooting trips I went on. We shot prairie dog from close in all the way out to 700 to 800 yards. The worst wind to deal with was the wind at your back that was switching slightly from side to side. At all ranges but particularly the longer ranges you would have on shot go to the left of the prairie dog then the next shot to the right as the wind shifted. Whenever I would set up my bench to shoot in the wind it would be with a side cross wind. As long as the wind was fairly steady you could make hits once you figured the hold off. Bill
 
I am surprised ( not really) that Ted gave out some really good tips. Wonderful guy! Interesting that the slower velocity worked better. At Extreme Benchrest, I saw on several occasions where the wind flags by the target were blowing to the right and the wind flags by the shooters were blowing to the left! LOL. I kid you not! Playing the wind is definitely key to this event!
Thanks again Ted for giving back to this sport!. 

Doc
 
"Widget23"
"Saltlake58".....Then the equipment, the Impact goes for just under $1900, nice scope, he sprung for his own compressor, extra air bottles and thousands of pellets that aren't cheap, we're talking probably $6K or 8K for an investment, so this was truly a dedication I won't match.
....That also means, if you throw out the investment, and if he only spent 750 hours in practice, that $5000 prize breaks down to a bit over $6.50 an hour for pay. Lousy pay. No, I won't duplicate his dedication. The prize is his, he earned it........

Funny, I was thinking the about same thing regarding the $5000 first place check - he probably spent way more than that in equipment and pellets trying to win. And you also added the time it took. Time away from family and losing points towards his father of the year aspirations. With that much time commitment shooting, father of the year wasn't happening.

But I am 100% glad he won. He had a lot of desire to win. What's his motivation in 2017?
Yeah he's a great marksman but no accountant. If the $5000 really was the most important thing, it would probably be easier to use that 2 hours of daily practice to get a part-time job. Shooting is far more fun though. 

As for the equipment, I'm sure he would have bought that anyway. The Impact is a multi-purpose gun.
 
Like many others here, Ted's videos got me interested in pcps. He is a natural in front of the camera. He genuinely enjoys sharing his knowledge. His statement that fliers weren't necessarily a given part of shooting, really peaked my interest...I wonder besides the gun, practice, pellet speed and reading the wind what gives him that confidence, that he won't have a flier. It appears that Ted has found the magic pellet and is able to duplicate it. Could it be sizing, weighing, rolling and/or living?
 
Well kids,
Remember back in grade school when you whined, why do we have to learn math and Algebra we 'll never use it?...... and later in highschool you whined, why do we need to learn Physics, I'll never need this stuff? Well, now you know. Cosine, tangent.....airgun???
Mr. Biers did a great job of approaching his challenge scientifically and took it all the way to the bank. 
And yes, he did have some choice equipment to achieve that goal but in any sport serious competitors get the best stuff to compete with. I think that his Impact was cherry picked by Frederik Axelsson but that's just a smart business move on Axelsson's part since Ted reaches scores of viewers with his videos. Wish my Impact shot that well (or is it me???). I'll probably send it in to Ernest to tweek out the best in it. Finally cool that Ted is releasing videos covering what he did. I'm sure there's going to be some useful info there for people like me.
Anyway......Congratulations Mr. Biers, well done. 
 
"Drumsnguns"Well kids,
Remember back in grade school when you whined, why do we have to learn math and Algebra we 'll never use it?...... and later in highschool you whined, why do we need to learn Physics, I'll never need this stuff? Well, now you know. Cosine, tangent.....airgun???
Mr. Biers did a great job of approaching his challenge scientifically and took it all the way to the bank. 
And yes, he did have some choice equipment to achieve that goal but in any sport serious competitors get the best stuff to compete with. I think that his Impact was cherry picked by Frederik Axelsson but that's just a smart business move on Axelsson's part since Ted reaches scores of viewers with his videos. Wish my Impact shot that well (or is it me???). I'll probably send it in to Ernest to tweek out the best in it. Finally cool that Ted is releasing videos covering what he did. I'm sure there's going to be some useful info there for people like me.
Anyway......Congratulations Mr. Biers, well done.


Well, In his initial review of the Impact, Ted shows us the groups that it was shooting out of the box and they were certainly less than impressive. His results would indicate that it was definitely not hand picked by anyone. He's never given anyone a reason to doubt that he's being anything less than truthful and he clearly puts in the time and research to achieve the world class consistency he is getting. Heck, even I have a video that I made of me shooting 33 shots into a dime sized hole at 50 yards out of my Royale 500 and I'm a nobody that anyone would hand pick a gun for. Personally, having been able to partially duplicate his results in my own back yard, I tend to believe him and take what he's saying in his videos at face value. I think when others aren't able to achieve the same results themselves that it is easy to just say, "oh he's got that one magic gun" or whatever. I really don't believe this to be the case.