An automatic rifle is a type of magazine-fed rifle that utilizes either its recoil or a portion of the gas propelling the projectile to operate its action. And, to remove the spent cartridge case, cock the rifle, load a new cartridge and fire again repeatedly, as long as the trigger is held down or until the magazine is exhausted. Most automatic rifles are select-fire weapons which are capable of firing in both full-automatic and semi-automatic (ie. firing one shot every time the trigger is pulled). This select-fire capability, as well as the use of detachable magazines and rifle ammunition, differentiate it from other classes of automatic firearms such as the machine gun and submachine gun.
Famous quotes containing the words automatic and/or rifle:
“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”
—Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)
“Truth is his inspirer, and earnestness the polisher of his sentences. He could afford to lose his Sharp’s rifles, while he retained his faculty of speech,—a Sharp’s rifle of infinitely surer and longer range.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)