Any gauss-rifle includes following basic parts:

• one or many accelerating coils;

• electric power supply (usually – accumulators);

• control unit which commutates the coils;

• capacitors storing energy for a shot;

• voltage converter which charges the caps.

I should add a projectile as a separate point because this is not a simple piece of iron in modern coilguns, but rather complex object demanding some calculations to be created ( I described it here and here).

There are some models of coilguns where the coils are directly connected to the power accus – this gives increased firing rate, but low projectile velocity because common accumulators cannot provide as high pulse power as caps can.

Besides, multistage coilguns have detectors as separate unit which determines exact position of a projectile and provides in-time switching of the coils (some constructions like DB6L coilgun are exclusions which operates according to pre-programmed timing sequence).

When building EM-3 gauss-gun I tried to make a review of all its main parts – one can find it on the page dedicated to this coilgun, or following to links on the picture below.