Chandra-sekhar Kumar Choudhary held his nerve in a tense situation to help India lift their first shooting medal at the 4th Military World Games.

Choudhary's solid 577 powered India to silver in the centre-fire pistol on Wednesday after Vijay Kumar's brilliant 590 and rookie Hambir Singh's 577 had kept them in the reckoning for a medal at the Hyderabad University Range. India's tally of 1744 points placed them behind China (1758), while Russia with 1740 points claimed the bronze.

Choudhary, who had a 286 in the precision round on Tuesday, had to raise his game in the duelling segment, with the experienced Pemba Tamang managing only 570. But with Chaudhary firing 291 in duelling, India could discard Tam-ang's scores. Points of three shooters out of four are considered for the team total.

The Indian quartet -- all from Army Marksmanship Unit in Mhow -- was thrilled with its achievement while National coach Sunny Thomas picked out Hambir for special praise. Still a junior, Hambir rose to the occasion here, showing the calmness of a veteran even though he was participating in his first international meet at the senior level.

The most senior of the four, Vijay Kumar, was simply outstanding earlier in the day, his 590 just a point short of the world record. Vijay, a Commonwealth Ga-mes gold medallist, had shot 293 in precision on Tuesday and he shot three 99s for a superb 297 in duelling.

Turkey's Hakan Erdeem won the gold in the men's 300M standard rifle 3-position, totalling 587 points.

Results:

25M centre-fire pistol: China 1758 points (Gao Zheng 587, Liu Yadong 586, Jin Yongde 585), 1; India 1744 (Vijay Kumar 590, C K Choudhary 577, Hambir Singh 577) 2; Russia 1740 (Sergey Polyakov 582, Mikhail Nestruev 581, Anton Guriyanov 577), 3.

300M standard rifle: Hakan Erdeem (Turkey) 587 points, 1; Vebjorn Beg (Norway) 584, 2; Thomas Farnik (Austria) 582, 3.