Farquhar - Hill rifle The Farquhar - Hill rifle , a British design by Moubray G . Farquhar and Arthur H . Hill , was one of the first automatic rifle s designed in the early 20th century . It was first tested in May 1908 , but had many failures . Several improved designs followed , none of which completely satisfied the Small Arms Committee . The Farquhar - Hill is long recoil operated automatic rifle of 0 . 303 inch caliber , which fed from a 20 - round drum . Magazine variations included a 10 - round truncated cone and a 65 - round drum . Operation is automatic with a cyclic rate of 700 rounds - per - minute . It has a muzzle velocity of 732 metres - per - second ( 2400 feet per second ) and is sighted to 1372 metres ( 4500 feet ) . One of the Farquhar - Hill rifles ( or one similar to it ) was tried in the United States late in the First World War using a drum type magazine . The British Army appears to have adopted and ordered the Farquhar - Hill rifle in 1918 , but the end of hostilities in Europe led to the cancellation of the order before any rifles were delivered . The rifle did see some use with British aviators , along the same lines as the Mauser Selbstlader and Mondragon rifle s . For observers and gunners aloft , self - loading rifles were an enormous improvement over bolt - action weapons , and self - loading rifles saw brief use before the practice of mounting machine guns in aircraft took hold . The Farquhar - Hill self - loading ( semi - automatic ) rifle , originally patented in the UK in 1908 and in the USA in 1909 , was a long - recoil operated rifle with rotary bolt locking . The key feature of this firearm was the fact that an intermediate ' action ' spring stored recoil energy . Upon discharge , the barrel recoiled back and forth while still locked with the bolt , compressing the intermediate spring on recoil . Upon return of the barrel into the forward position the energy stored in the intermediate spring cycled the bolt back and forth , extracting and ejecting the spent case and feeding a fresh round into the now stationary barrel . The main goal was to achieve smooth and reliable cycling of the bolt , but the design was very complicated and thus badly suited for a military firearm . By 1911 , Farquhar and Hill revised their rifle , changing its source of energy from barrel recoil to more convenient gas operated action . This new weapon also utilized intermediate spring as a source of energy for cycling of the bolt , but the barrel was now stationary , simplifying design and making it potentially more accurate and reliable . During following years this design was further refined and tested by British Army on several occasions . This rifle was initially chambered for the new “ . 303 rimless ” round , designed by necking up the 7 . 65x53mm Belgian Mauser case and loading it with British - issue Mk . VII bullet of . 303 caliber . Later on this experimental loading was discarded in favor of the standard issue . 303 British ammunition . After several trials , including troop trials at the Front , in 1918 the Farquhar - Hill rifle was found to be suitable for military use , and an official request was issued for procurement of as much as 100 , 000 of Farquhar - Hill rifles for British forces fighting on the Continent against Germany . Official nomenclature assigned to the military Farquhar - Hill rifle in August 1918 was “ Rifle . . 303 inch , Pattern 1918 ” . However , hostilities of the Great War ended before production facilities were allocated for this rifle , and in the view of an upcoming peace the requirement for manufacture of Farquhar - Hill rifles was dropped in 1919 . During 1920s and early 1930s Farquhar redesigned this rifle into a light machine gun of lightweight design , fed from top - mounted pan magazines . On several occasions the British army tested this machine gun , known as the Beardmore - Farquhar , but ultimately rejected it for a variety of reasons .