By 1916, the Allies were short on light machine guns (LMGs) and a Canadian designer from Quebec named Joseph Huot devised a way to modify existing Ross straight-pull rifles into drum-fed light machine guns. Since there was an ample supply of Ross rifles, the conversions would not cost much, so the Huot Rifle went ahead. The mods were simple: a gas piston to operate the bolt, a new 25 round drum magazine, a cooling shroud added, and a rear guard to protect the gunner from the operation of the bolt. An order was placed fpr 1000 of them, but due to mod and testing delays the gun was not available for combat as the war ended. It was claimed better and more reliable than the Lewis gun and could have easily supplied troops in even early WW2 due to the simple conversion method. It was claimed that the first Huot test gun blew through 14,000 rds before jamming! A little-known weapon, it was a good conversion of a basic straight-pull Ross rifle.

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