The Sheffield-born civil servant, who won gold, silver and bronze in Victoria, took the title with a Commonwealth record of 679 points. He had already won three golds - in the individual free pistol and with Nick Baxter in the men's pairs free pistol and men's pairs air pistol.

Gault, celebrating his four-gold haul, said: "This is due reward for a lot of training. I was up against some professional shooters from India and Malaysia and to get another gold is amazing.

"I've been told if I was Malaysian I would have won four cars and a house by now but the four golds are reward enough."

India's Jaspal Rana took the silver medal after a shoot-out with New Zealander Greg Yelavich. They were tied on 677.4 points each at the end of regulation firing.

Desmond Davies of Wales won the skeet title on the last day of shooting. Davies won with 145 targets in the skeet, ahead of the 144 of Joe Trinci of Canada and 143 of David Cunningham of Australia.

Timothy Lowndes of Australia won the men's shooting individual free rifle 3 positions gold medal. Wayne Sorensen of Canada took the silver and Kenneth Parr of England the bronze.

Full shooting programme for Manchester

The Commonwealth Shooting Federation is hoping to include all Olympic shooting events in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games.

Federation president Graeme Hudson said it would recommend an increase in events to the Commonwealth Games Federation.

"We hope other Olympic events like double trap, women's skeet and traps can be included in the Manchester 2002," Hudson said.

In Kuala Lumpur, there were 30 shooting events - 15 for pairs and 15 for individuals. They included air pistol, sport pistol, sport rifle prone, free pistol, rapid fire pistol, free rifle prone, free rifle 3 positions, skeet, trap and full-bore rifle.