SPARTA, Ill. — Observe, if you will, the migration. It happens every summer. Pickup trucks pulling fifth-wheels roll in from every corner of the continent, gravel-crunching their way toward a stretch of southern Illinois prairie where 121 trap fields run for three and a half miles along a single firing line. The shooters arrive a few at a time, then by the hundreds, then by the thousands. They have come for the Grand.
The 127th Grand American World Trapshooting Championship begins July 29 and runs through August 8 at the World Shooting and Recreational Complex. The Amateur Trapshooting Association’s flagship event and the largest tournament of its kind on the planet, the 2026 Grand marks the 21st staged in Sparta since the championship left its longtime Vandalia, Ohio, home, and the first since the death of ATA Executive Director Lynn Gipson.
Gipson, who passed away April 18 at 67, was the ATA’s top administrator for more than 14 years and shaped the modern Grand into the international event it is today. His memorial sits on page five of the program. His successor, Randy Moeller, inherits a tournament Gipson built and a calendar Gipson packed. Additionally, Gipson was a newly minted NRA Director after winning election for a one-year term in 2026.
The National Rifle Association of America is an ATA Grand American World Trapshooting Championship sponsor and vendor.
The 2026 schedule reads like a major championship leaderboard with 11 days of events. Preliminary Week opens July 29 with the Fiocchi Ammunition Singles and runs through August 2, anchored by warm-up events and the AIM youth championships—where the kids, as ATA president Joe Sissano notes in his welcome letter, treat 200-target runs as routine. NRA Singles will be on Saturday, August 1 and Sunday, August 2, broken into 100 targets each. The 100-target events stack up day after day: MEC Outdoors Singles, SOS Clays Doubles, Trap and Field Handicap and Little Egypt Golf Cars Doubles. While the names change, the rhythm does not.
Grand Week begins Monday, August 3 with the Opening Ceremony, the Blue-Gray Shootout and fireworks presented by White Flyer Targets. The signature events follow. The ATA World Clay Target Championship presented by Browning takes the line Thursday, August 6, while the ATA World Doubles Championship presented by Kolar runs Friday. And the marquee competition, the Grand American Handicap presented by Elite Shotguns, will close the tournament on Saturday, August 8.
The numbers around the place tell their own story. Last year the World Shooting and Recreational Complex logged 4,605,158 registered targets, more than the next two facilities combined. The complex offers 1,000 on-site camping spaces and 80 exhibitor stalls. The ATA Hall of Fame, a fan favorite, will have its Induction Banquet on Tuesday, August 4. Perhaps best of all, White Flyer Orange Dome targets will fly for the duration of the tournament.
There is a quiet hierarchy to it. The 25-year attendance emblems get handed out Monday night. Seventy-year-olds shoot without minimum target requirements. Sub-juniors line up next to senior veterans on the same squad and shoot the same birds. The Kolar Satellite Grand American High-All-Around Shoot-Off brings champions from Satellite Grand events across the country to settle things on Sunday, August 2.
Closing ceremonies are Friday, August 7, along with the ATA Hall of Fame scholarship announcement and raffle drawing. The Farewell Party follows Saturday after the Grand American Handicap finishes. By Monday the campground will be quiet again. By Tuesday the gravel lots will be empty.
Next year’s Grand American has already been scheduled for July 28 through August 7, 2027.
Full program and pre-squadding details are available at shootata.com.
