2026 English Open - our score predictions

All the ‘big guns’ (pun intended) are at the Barbury Shooting School in Swindon to try and snare some of the prize pots offer. More importantly, they’re looking to bag the 2026 English Open Championship title – undoubtedly a prestigious one to have on your shooting CV.

These super-humans will be hitting upwards of 110 out of the possible 120 targets which is an astonishing feat. Especially as the complexity, speed and distance of the targets on offer is always turned up to full.

The 2025 English Open at High Lodge was won by Phil Gray with a score of 118 out of 120 – how on earth does someone manage to build a score that big and keep a cool head?

Along with the top shots well over 1,000 shooters are heading to the stands for the experience, community and, if you’re like the PAIR DEAD squad, aiming to shoot a bigger score than your last open championship.

Let’s be fair, we’re all not AAA shots. Statistically the vast majority of us are probably B or A class shots. There’ll also be a good number of C class shooters getting their first taste of an open championship.

So what kind of scores should you be pushing yourself to achieve?

Looking at the current percentage cut offs for climbing the CPSA classes from C to B and then to A gives a clue. Add in the extra ‘open championship zing’ that the targets will have and you’ll be closer to reality.

Heading for a strong 80% would be a good aim. It’s the rough mid-point of the A class band which would see a score on the day of 100 out of 120. This would represent a superb card and any A class who shoots this gets a respect-filled nod from us.

Looking again at the rough mid-point for this class, 70% would be a great result. It would mean a score of 84 out of 120. However, last year we saw B class shooters hitting high 90’s so stats aside, it’s what happens on the day that counts.

It’s a bit tricky to put a flag in the ground here. C class is a real mix of everything – from budding shots with a year or two of clay shooting on their CV to top C class shots heading for B class when the next rankings come out.

So we’ll say that a decent C class shooter should challenge themselves and try for a 60-65%. The equates to a target score of around 75-78 out of 120 this week.

We’ve already seen the top shots of George Digweed, Richard Bunning and Dave Ferriman putting in scores of 110 each. The bar’s been set quite high, but there’s still room to go higher.

With the shoot averaging out at 69% overall so far according to the CPSA stats here, it’s evident that there aren’t many easy stands out there.

As we said, it all comes down to what happens on the day. If the wind blows hard, scores take a knock. If we see rain (which is looking likely) the scores take another dip.

On the flip side, a dry calm day could see scores heading well above our predictions.

One thing is for sure though, like all the championships of past there’ll inevitably be some surprising results. Whatever happens we’ll be watching the scores roll in with interest.

With a winning score of 118/120 last year, will someone straight the 2026 layout for the perfect 120/120?

That’s a lot of “PAIR DEAD” being called by the refs right there. Two words we love to hear.