Huot Automatic Rifle

The Huot Automatic Rifle was a Canadian light machine gun project of the First World War. In 1916 the Canadian Expeditionary Force was short of light machine guns, and the engineer Joseph Huot of Richmond, Quebec adapted the straight-pull bolt action of the surplus Ross rifle. The sample shared 33 parts with the Ross Mark III and used a pneumatic piston parallel to the barrel, a buffered bolt, a cooling system copied from the Lewis Gun and a 25-round drum magazine. The Dominion Rifle Factory built a finished version, which was tested at Quebec City in November 1916 and again in 1917. In March 1918 it was tried at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield against the Lewis, Hotchkiss and Farquhar-Hill guns, where it did better than the Lewis in some tests and was the only weapon able to work after immersion. General Arthur Currie, commanding the Canadian Corps, reported that soldiers who met it liked it and in October 1918 asked for 5,000 to be bought. It fired fully automatic only, and at about 50 Canadian dollars it was far cheaper than the Lewis. The war ended before it entered service, and the project was dropped.