[en] The PHERMEX facility is a 50-MHz standing-wave linear accelerator. Electrons are injected, accelerated, and transported to a tungsten target where bremsstrahlung x rays are generated for flash radiography of hydrodynamic systems. The purpose of this article is to describe the progress of PHERMEX electron gun development. The goal of this program is to generate and transport a 200-ns, 1-MV, 1-kA electron beam into the first PHERMEX accelerating cavity. The standard gun is operated at a pulse voltage of 550 kV, which is the limit determined by internal breakdown of the vacuum insulator. This insulator has been redesigned, and the gun has been pulsed at 750 kV without internal breakdown. At present, the current output is not limited by voltage but by a phenomenon called pulse shortening, which occurs at a pulse voltage of approximately 650 kV. The phenomenon has been investigated and the results are presented