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If you like to learn more about french and american Chaucat-MGs...and why the US troops use them ....and not the (ready manufactured) lewis guns, watch this here:
The main reason why the US Army didn't use the Lewis gun is because Col Lewis was persona non grata with the Chief of Ordinance who wanted the BAR... The Marines (Navy) did however and used it in the US intervention in Russia...
The French always avoided buying foreign weapons and had their own official government arms factories and would even avoid producing under licence, the reason why the Hotchkiss MMg (a private company) took so long to be universally adopted and the infantry Lewis never was, quite apart from its cost...
One thing the video mentions is the heavier recoil for the US CSRG Chauchat 1918, more powerfull ammo and conversion problems converting from US imperial to metric, the US CSRG was produced using metric machinery but had to use US Imperial ammo!...ouch...
"For the Americans adaption to the 30-06 cartridge was more than the design could reliably sustain. The weapon was designed for what was to be the new cartritge of 7mm or 7.5mm that the French were looking to change to (prewar*) but could not work out the logistics & thus was mmanufactured in 8mm lebel causing problems. The 30-06 is bigger & much more powerful than 8mm lebel hence real problems. Add in inexperienced troops new to the weapon etc" (Honour Bound, The Chauchat Machine Rifle, Gerard Demaison, Yves Buffetaut)*my note.
This was enough to cause it to fail as the original chauchat design was intended for a smaller round, and the 8mm version and its bicycle quality production had already overstretched the design...
The difference in the mags is down to the shape of the ammo, but these were weak and poor quality throughout and this is noted in many french reports...