Alan over at www.hackedgadgets.com has an interesting article on Coil guns.

‘A coilgun (not to be confused with a railgun) is a type of magnetic accelerator gun (MAG) or magnetic accelerator cannon (MAC). It uses one or more electromagnetic coils to accelerate a magnetic shell to very high velocities. The name “Gauss gun” is a reference to Carl Friedrich Gauss, who formulated mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic effect used by magnetic accelerators. Coilguns work according to the same magnetic principle as the Gauss gun, but their methods vary: both guns use an attractive magnetic force to accelerate the projectile, but Gauss guns use electromagnets while coilguns use solenoids.’

Go check out the article on www.hackedgadgets.com

Here’s some videos of coilguns in action….