Here we see the introduction of the popular grip safety that has found its way into many pistol designs since 1897. John Browning utilized the .38 ACP caliber round again for this semi-auto pistol. Another feature that was introduced with this patent was a locking recoil system. A quick glance at the patent drawing and you will notice this design stands out compared to his other designs. Colt purchased this design and tested it, but never moved forward on production. The design earned John Moses Browning US Patent 580925 on April 20th, 1897. He had applied for this patent on October 31st, 1896.

This design became the Colt M1900 or Model 1900 and later with very minor modifications the Model 1902. It was the first self loading semi-auto pistol manufactured by Colt and would become the foundation for most of the Colt auto loading pistols. It was actually the second semi-automatic pistol designed by Browning and purchased by Colt, but the previous patent never hit production. The Colt M1900 also marked the introduction of the .38 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) caliber round. In addition to the introduction of the .38 ACP, this design stood out because it was the first with a full length slide.

All of these features are seen in the Patent Drawings. This US Patent was granted to John Browning on April 20th, 1897 under the Patent Number 580924. John Browning had applied for this patent on October 31st, 1896.

This was the first semi-automatic pistol that John Browning designed. It used a .38 caliber round with a single stack magazine. That remained the standard magazine design until the John Browning Designed Hi-Power (Patent 1618510), which used a double stack magazine. He was granted US Patent 580923 for this design on April 20th, 1897. Browning had applied for this Patent almost two years earlier, on September 14th, 1895. Patent 580923 was sold to Colt, but Colt never manufactured this particular design.