Editing Firearm (section)

==== Automatic rifles ====
{{main|Automatic rifle}}
[[File:AVS-36 AM.068386 (2) (cropped).jpg|thumb|The [[AVS-36]], an automatic rifle chambered in [[7.62×54mmR]]]]

An automatic rifle is a magazine-fed rifle that is capable of automatic fire. They include most assault rifles and battle rifles, but originated as their own category of rifles capable of automatic fire, as opposed to the bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles commonly issued to infantry at the time of their invention. They usually have smaller magazine capacities than [[machine gun]]s; the French [[Chauchat]] had a 20-round box magazine, while the [[Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun]], the [[French Army]]'s standard machine gun at the time, was fed by a 250-round [[ammunition belt]].

Though automatic rifles are sometimes considered to be their own category, they are also occasionally considered to be other types of firearms that postdated their invention, usually as [[light machine gun]]s. Automatic rifles are sometimes confused with machine guns or vice versa, or are defined as such by law; the [[National Firearms Act]] and [[Firearm Owners Protection Act]] define a "machine gun" in [[United States Code]] ''Title 26, Subtitle E, Chapter 53, Subchapter B, Part 1, § 5845'' as "... any firearm which shoots ... automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger". "Machine gun" is therefore largely synonymous with "automatic weapon" in American civilian parlance, covering all automatic firearms. In most jurisdictions, automatic rifles, as well as automatic firearms in general, are prohibited from civilian purchase or are at least heavily restricted; in the U.S. for instance, most automatic rifles are [[Title II weapons]] that require certain licenses and are greatly regulated.

Examples of automatic rifles include the [[Cei-Rigotti]], [[Lewis gun]], [[Fedorov Avtomat]], and [[M1918 Browning automatic rifle]].