Seems there still being developed and not in use for decades:
Railguns as weapons Railguns are being pursued as weapons with projectiles that do not contain explosives, but are given extremely high velocities: 3500 m/s (11,500 ft/s) or more (for comparison, the M16 rifle has a muzzle speed of 975-1025 m/s, or 3,000 ft/s), which would make their kinetic energy equal or superior to the energy yield of an explosive-filled shell of greater mass. This would allow more ammunition to be carried and eliminate the hazards of carrying explosives in a tank or naval weapons platform. Also, by firing at higher velocities railguns have greater range, less bullet drop and less wind drift, bypassing the inherent cost and physical limitations of conventional firearms - "the limits of gas expansion prohibit launching an unassisted projectile to velocities greater than about 1.5 km/s and ranges of more than 50 miles [80 km] from a practical conventional gun system."[1]
Tests Full-scale models have been built and fired, including a very successful 90 mm bore, 9 MJ (6.6 million foot-pounds) kinetic energy gun developed by DARPA, but they all suffer from extreme rail damage and need to be serviced after every shot. Rail and insulator ablation issues still need to be addressed before railguns can start to replace conventional weapons. Probably the most successful system was built by the UK's Defence Research Agency at Dundrennan Range in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. This system has now been operational for over 10 years at an associated flight range for internal, intermediate, external and terminal ballistics, and is the holder of several mass and velocity records.
The United States military is funding railgun experiments. At the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Advanced Technology, military railguns capable of delivering tungsten armor piercing bullets with kinetic energies of nine million joules have been developed [1]. Nine million joules is enough energy to deliver 2 kg of projectile at 3 km/s - at that velocity a tungsten or other dense metal rod could penetrate a tank.
The United States Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division demonstrated an 8 mega-joule rail gun firing 3.2 kilogram (slightly more than 7 pounds) projectiles in October of 2006 as a prototype of a 64 mega-joule weapon to be deployed aboard Navy warships. Such weapons are expected to be powerful enough to replace BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles at a fraction of the operating expense.[2]
Due to the very high muzzle velocity that can be attained with railguns, there is interest in using them to shoot down high-speed missiles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gun
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