Analysis of Railgun vs Coil gun technologies

Claimed by Orrin Borden Fall 2025

Rail guns and coil guns both use electromagnetic forces to launch projectiles. A rail gun ejects a projectile, called armature by running a current of several million Amperes across two rails, which are connected in a loop by the conducting projectile. The current generates a magnetic force on the projectile, which propels it out of the muzzle. A coil gun uses one or several coils of current carrying wire to generate carefully timed magnetic "pulls" to propel a projectile. The barrel of the gun is wrapped one or several coils, through which a current is run to generate a magnetic force, pulling the projectile forward. Once one coil is reached by the projectile, current is diverted to next coil to pull it forward even more.