The Rail Rifle is a long range, high power, extreme precision weapon.  A Rail Rifle is a ‘railgun’ taken to its logical extreme, and is similar in process to the starship versions of the weapon that go by the same name.  The rifle uses two large conducting plates that run down the length of the weapon to propel the mass it conducts at incredible speeds.  The weapon is so damaging that a round can easily go through multiple targets or objects and this fact much be taken into consideration.

Other similar weapons like the Flechette Thrower or the Sweep Rifle all use the electromagnetic technology but unlike the others that primarily use coils/plates to propel objects, this uses an actual rail and sabot to stabilize and conduct the projectile.  Unlike the others which use more quantity to be deadly, the Rail Rifle is a dedicated sniper weapon.  It uses the largest sized ‘mass’ for its created projectile out of its ammo block.

Rail Rifles are basically the ‘crude cannon’ of the high-end magnetic weapons.  A Rail Rifle is far more tough of a weapon, as long as the rails are generally straight, the sabot can be adjusted and still launched with devastating power.  Whereas others use power to stabilize the projectile while its launched, the sabot does that, meaning all power can be devoted to forward momentum.

It bears repeating that despite the very close similarity of a ‘rail gun’ vs a coil/gauss gun and using the same EM forces, they are different.  The projectile is ‘connected’ to the rail, whereas in the others it is essentially floated along. The Rail Rifle and other rail guns might perhaps seem more crude, but in terms of power is unmatched by other Mag weapons.

Rail Rifles come in two major variations.  A shorter more ‘tactical’ version exists that the ammo creates a larger type of sabot to ensure the correct and accurate launch of the round that it much more stable if the weapon is moving, but this has the disadvantage of using ammo even faster which is a major weakness of the weapon.  There is a longer version that has multiple adjustment rails at the beginning the correctly position each projectile prior to launch thereby eliminating the need for a larger stabilizing sabot and it used only for conduction, saving approximately 50% more shots per ammo block.  The disadvantage is a much longer and heavier weapon.

For a similar weapon, Silvershot rifles launch a likewise larger round, but one that will detonate after piercing armor.

 

Trivia:

Agrest from Project: AKRA uses a Rail Rifle as one of his primary weapons.  He is able to kill heavy drones and robots with a single well placed shot.

Much like the starship version, the weapon is suited primarily for heavy and slow enemies but is devastatingly effective.

A Rail Rifle can literally shoot hundreds of miles away.