By Lewis Page

“US Navy boffins are chuffed to announce that they have managed to fire their thousandth shot from a test electromagnetic railgun, addressing one of the most serious weaknesses of such weapons: that they tend to damage or wreck themselves after only a few shots.

“A railgun weapons system must be able to launch hundreds of projectiles and withstand extreme pressures, currents and temperatures,” said Captain Paul Stewart in tinned quotes issued by the Naval Research Laboratory yesterday. “Today’s firing of the one-thousandth shot demonstrates Navy researchers are steadily progressing toward achieving that goal, developing a more effective and efficient future ship combat system.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/02/railgun_durability_milestone/