Yes, its just a less shocking way to say a coil gun 
I'm starting a coil gun project I've built a few prototype coil guns based on other peoples designs (by prototype i mean it was never more than a collection of parts on a bench that worked then got repurposed)
I am looking at building a 'cool' modular scifi inspired coil gun as an opensource project. i've posted it up to github for anyone to look at or contribute.
But specifically the problem i'm encountering (i think) is the magnetic field generated by the coils is destroying arduinos... has anyone got any experience using atmegas in very close proximity to very powerful magnetic fields? what do people usually use for shielding, in my previous setups it was all spread out on a bench so i never ran into this problem.
if you want to look at the circuit diagrams and what not its posted here https://github.com/maliqua/openlma
I'm still figuring out git so there is a lot missing in the repo right now.. and yes i know the feed mechanisms are pretty ugly right now.