http://www.asminternational.org/new...56/10192/20085491/VIDEO#.VmitpJ4mnqo.facebook A railgun is an electrically powered electromagnetic projectile launcher. It is made of a pair of parallel conducting rails, along which a sliding armature is accelerated by the electromagnetic effects of a current that flows down one rail, into the armature, and then back along the other rail.
Turns out this technology is more complicated than I first thought. Someone on another forum recommended this link: https://books.google.com/books?id=m...onepage&q=railgun plasma maxwell labs&f=false