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The world para shooting championships in Sydney will feature vision-impaired shooters for the first time.

Vision-impaired shooting will feature for the first time when the world para shooting championships get underway in Sydney.

More than 500 athletes from 58 nations will compete at the event beginning on Friday at the Sydney International Shooting Centre.

It will serve as a qualifier for the 2020 Toyko Paralympics with 53 quota slots available.

The competition will include the new discipline of para trap shooting and also feature visually-impaired athletes who use rifles fitted with special aiming devices which help locate the centre of the target using sound.

Shooting Australia chief executive Luke van Kempen says para shooters will compete in rifle, pistol and trap events.

"In this precision sport, athletes use focus and controlled breathing to reduce their heart rates and improve stability and high performance," he said.

"This ability to steady hand and mind to deliver a sequence of shots requires well-developed powers of concentration and emotional control."

Australia will field a nine-strong team including Brisbane's Natalie Smith, who won bronze in the 10m air rifle event at the 2012 London Paralympics.

Smith became a paraplegic aged 34 when she slipped off a rock while on a tourist walk in the Northern Territory.

She took up shooting in 2010 and has been named para shooter of the year three times by Shooting Australia.

Queensland's Glen McMurtrie, who will compete in the 10m air rifle disciplines, achieved world champion status in 2017 after suffering a fractured spine and being left paralysed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident.