Build a real railgun. Documented experiments with a railgun, including description, photos, and videos.

Discussion forum for coilguns and railguns.

Coilgun construction, circuit ideas, and other useful information on coilguns.

Learn about electromagnetic coilgun design principles. These web pages describe theory, design and a small prototype. What is a coilgun? It accelerates a piece of iron or steel down a tube. The tube runs through a series of electromagnetic coils (like solenoids). Some careful timing circuits energize each coil in sequence. The principle of magnetic attraction draws the projectile along at rapidly increasing speed.