No, you don't quite understand because I haven't given all the details. I was trying to build a system that would operate at low potential ranges ~12V, and only produce a gentle push. remember, this was a class project not my attempt to conquer the world. This means that I needed very low resistance, and very low friction for the projectile. it turns out that these two requirements are mutually exclusive, at least on the limited budget I had. My problem was that I could not get efficient electrical contact between the armature and the rails. I would simply get a small arc that would spot weld the armature to the rails. even if all my materials were super conductors and kept at 1K it would not work.