A "stupid" decision to wear orange lenses cost Olympic gold medallist Russell Mark dearly as he missed out on a men's double trap medal at the Delhi Commonwealth Games.

Sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Alethea Sedgman ended Australia's shooting gold medal drought on Thursday and the team also picked up a bronze among the four events decided.

But Mark misfired in the double trap, after entering the final just one shot behind leader Stevan Walton from England.

He later revealed his patchy late performance was down to a poor choice of prescription shooting glasses, which he eventually went without after dropping from contention with a scoreless 20th round of the 25-round final.

"I just wore the wrong coloured glasses and that was stupid," Mark said. "Earlier on today when we shot it was beautiful and bright but now it's pretty dark.

"I didn't want to change the colour of the lenses but I just struggled seeing the second target."

Mark shot 41 out of 50 in the final to finish on 183 out of 200, well behind Walton who dominated to post 190.

That disappointment followed a spectacular gold medal performance from Sedgman earlier in the day, with the youngster from Natimuk in regional Victoria winning the women's three position 50 metre rifle.

By far the best result of her short career, Sedgman didn't realise she'd won Australia's first shooting gold medal in Delhi until her teammates started screaming in the stands.

"I was like 'oh, really? Cool," she said.

Sedgman scored 676.0 to win from Singaporean duo Xiang Ser (672.6) and Aqilah Sudhir (671.3).

She only took up the sport four years ago after visiting the range with her father, a recreational shooter.

Veteran Bruce Quick took his career tally of Commonwealth Games medals to 14 with a bronze alongside David Chapman in the men's 25 metre rapid pistol pairs, and said he expected Sedgman's win to lift the Australian shooters after a poor start to the Games.

"It's a real lift for the team," he said. "Today everybody's on a high. We're on a roll."

Quick and Chapman shot 1125 out of 1200 to finish behind India (1162) and Malaysia (1144).

Daniel Repacholi and Christopher Roberts were just two points shy of another bronze in the men's 10 metre air pistol, finishing on 1137 out of 1200 behind third-place Singapore.

India won the event to take their total shooting gold medal count to seven.

Drew Cratchley
AAP