A toy system, and first lesson

I put together a test fixture to play with. I'll post pics and a schematic in a little bit. As I pressed the fire button, I was entirely underwhelmed with the performance. The steel rod, at best, fell out about 3" from the coil. Adding a SCR and a trigger circuit might make a difference, as well as disconnecting the power supply.

I'll test dis-connecting the power supply after charging.

Also, my volt meter, during charging, slowly increased to about 7-8 volts, and stopped there. I expected it to continue increasing to about 12 volts.

Here is the parts list:

Note 1 is a 12 VDC benchtop power supply.
M1 is my trusty voltmeter.
C1 is a 15,000 MFD, 15VAC Capacitor ($3 at Ax-Man!)
The L1 coil is a random coil, also from Ax-Man. About 1" dia, 3" long, I.D of ~3/8"

Master Plan

Here's what I'm thinking about as an approach to learning:

1) Build a single stage, low voltage gun, largely patterned after Barry's Mark II coil gun. You have to spend time in his site, it's amazing!

2) Increase the size of the capacitor bank as far as practical at 19 - 30 volts.

3) Increase the charging voltage to 220 volts.

4) Design and build a 4 stage coil gun.

Welcome

I have taught classes inside my company on social media, but have never had anything I wanted to post before.

I'm going to try to design and build (or, adapt other's designs and cobble together) a few coil guns.

Helpful suggestions are always welcome.