Jordan Fred Clarke, 29, had faced an attempted murder charge following the incident on April 27 last year.

He pleaded guilty on Friday to a far less serious charge of intentionally causing injury.

The County Court heard Clarke had walked up to the victim at her Wodonga home on the day of the incident.

The pair had broken up three days earlier.

He had a hoodie over his head and an unknown weapon, which he placed on the victim's forehead in front of witnesses.

The victim said "do it" and Clarke fired the weapon, with an onlooker stating it sounded like a high-powered rifle being shot.

A piece of metal measuring 12 millimetres long and 1.5 millimetres wide lodged into her skull. The court heard Clarke was driven away by a friend, Sean Devlin, in a Peugeot.

Surgery was required to remove the object the following day.

"Are you okay?" Clarke texted the victim while she was in hospital.

"You f---ing what?" she asked.

"You don't love someone and do that."

The woman said if the metal had gone a further two millimetres, "it wouldn't just be attempted murder"

The metal penetrated the inside of her skull by five millimetres.

The victim was initially reluctant to get police involved.

Wodonga police searched her home and found diaries documenting the tumultuous relationship between the pair.

Clarke's phone records placed him near the scene at the time of the offending and security cameras filmed his friend's Peugeot arriving before the offence.

He was arrested at Albury airport on May 9 last year and has been in custody since.

Police initially said a nail gun had been used, but Clarke said it was a homemade Taser.

There is no definitive answer on what weapon was actually used.

Lawyer Hayden Rattray said his client's intention was to shock the woman and cause pain, but he never intended for the projectile to enter her head.

He said it was "madness" for Clarke to put himself in that situation.

"We are all extremely lucky that the injury was not worse, it was inflicted to the victim's head, to a part of the victim's face," Mr Rattray said.

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The court heard the offence was planned and was aggravated by being domestic violence related and involving a weapon.

Judge Pardeep Tiwana said he needed time to consider the appropriate sentence for the complex case and ordered Clarke be assessed for a community corrections order.

The matter will return on September 14.

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