Yelavich, 53, combined with Alan Earle in New Delhi to win a dramatic silver in the pairs 25-metre centrefire pistol, with Earle sealing it on the last shot.
Earle had to take two goes at the crucial shot, as his pistol failed to fire the first time he squeezed the trigger. The referee checked the firearm out, and, needing an eight (out of 10), Earle sealed the deal.
He was worried the firing pin had broken, as it did a couple of days ago.
"I hoped it was not another one of those, but it went bang at the right time," Earle said after he and Yelavich embraced in joy.
Yelavich and Earle totalled 1140 points in the shoot at the Dr Karni Singh shooting range, with Indian pair Vijay Kumar and Harpet Singh taking the gold medal on 1159.
New Zealand held off Singapore pair Bin Gai and Lip Meng Poh (1139) to grab the silver.
They bounced back from a horror opening stage, when their combined 375 from 400 had them back in sixth equal place, trailing India (384), with Singapore, Canada and Pakistan on 382, and Malaysia on 376.
With two of the three brackets shot, New Zealand were fifth equal.
A brilliant final bracket of 386 took Yelavich and Earle past Singapore, Canada and Pakistan to claim an unlikely silver.
Earle did not know what he needed to score on the last shot, nor did he want to.
"There is enough pressure as there is and I didn't want to know where we were. If I'd known we'd needed an eight to win silver, I would probably have shot six!"
Yelavich now has two gold, five silver and five bronze, his first won at Edinburgh in 1986. Shooting in his seventh Commonwealth Games, he was already the most decorated New Zealander in history.
"I'm so excited I could almost do a jig like a touchdown on the football field," he said.
"It's a real buzz. This is just as good as the first one. Just being there wearing this silver fern is just big, it really is."
Like Earle, Yelavich did not know the pair had shot into medal contention. He did not check the scoreboard, preferring to focus on the job at hand.
"I had no idea until one of the officials came up and shook my hand. I thought he was saying goodbye to me or something. I knew it wouldn't be easy."
There was also drama in the women's trap, when a miss on the last shot cost New Zealander Nadine Stanton the bronze.
Stanton had to endure a five-way shoot off just to make the six-person final, then got up to third with a string of nine consecutive hits, only to falter and miss two of her last four.
Her last miss handed Gaby Ahrens of Namibia the bronze.
Waimate shooter Natalie Rooney was in second place going into the 25-shot final, only to miss five of her first seven and drop out of contention.
Stanton was fourth on 87 points, Rooney fifth on 85. Englishwoman Anita North won the gold with 93.
After day one of the men's single trap, Myles Browne-Cole was 11th and Allan Sinclair 23rd.
At the Kadapur range, John Snowden was tied third and Mike Collings ninth, after the first day of the five-day full bore singles shoot, and tied for fourth in pairs.
