A Marine from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar showcased his skills alongside more than 600 shooters in the World Trap and Skeet Competition in San Antonio Oct. 3 through 10.

Gunnery Sgt. John A. Berry, the main utilities officer with Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 3, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, placed seventh in the B-class group of shooters as part of an eight-member Marine Corps shooting team.

Berry won 15 of the team’s 78 individual awards and helped the group win nine team awards.

Berry’s father introduced him to skeet shooting as a teen when he brought him along to competitions. Berry progressed from watching to participating in the shooting matches.

 “My parents actually just found a couple of awards that I had forgotten about,” said Berry. “I used to shoot when I was a kid about 14 or 15 years old. My grandfather taught me how to shoot with BB guns when I was young.”

Berry brought his shooting talents to the Marine Corps when he participated in several skeet competitions at Okinawa, Japan, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

Skeet shooting requires five shooters to fire 25 rounds each at small discs called “birds” from eight different stations arranged in a half circle. Two houses on the field, called a low house and a high house, fire the discs as “singles” or as “doubles.”

Shooters must qualify with four gauges to compete. Berry qualified with 12, 20, 28 and .410-gauge weapons. To negate the high cost of owning four different weapons, Berry uses one shotgun with different customized barrel inserts that allow it to fire all four gauges.

Berry had to do a minimum of five registered shoots to join the team, which required a lot of traveling since the closest qualifying range is in El Monte, Calif., he explained.

“There are not a whole lot of bases out there that support it,” said Berry. “We don’t have a qualifying range here on the station.”

Once he finished the shoots, Berry submitted the scores to Marine Corps Community Services and they determined his scores were good enough for the team. He began practicing for the competition in March.

The competition began with a “mini” world trap and skeet competition for the first two days, during which Berry won several rookie awards. The mini competition was like a practice round for all the shooters, explained Berry.

Team members could qualify for seven different classes: AAA, AA, A, B, C, D and E. The AAA-class is for the higher level shooters while E-class is for the beginners. Several of the team’s members shot in A class and above, explained Berry. He was one of the rookies because it was his first competition with the team.

Although this year’s competition is over, Berry continues to practice for more skeet competitions and next year’s world competition.

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