The United States military tested the design against other semiautomatic pistols by European makers, and adopted some versions for trial use.

The barrel rode in locking grooves machined into the interior of the slide, but attached to swinging links secured to the frame, one at the front and one at the rear.

The barrel is caught, and moved forward with the slide, the camming action of the links lifting it again to lock into the matching grooves.

This is identical to the modern style of short recoil action as developed for the later M1911, with the exception of employing both front and rear links, which causes the whole barrel to remain parallel to the slide as it drops out of the locking grooves.

This approach was found to work perfectly well, and saved in complexity, cost of manufacture, as well as simplicity of assembly and disassembly.

The prototype .41 caliber Colt automatic cartridge was never produced in production quantity, but the concept anticipated the development of the .40 S&W by over 90 years.

Although Colt considered a new firing pin safety mounted on the left side of the slide with one prototype, it did not produce such a model.

This was possibly a mistake as the lack of safety features probably affected sales – the recommended way to carry a safety-less Colt automatic was with an empty chamber, requiring the user the rack the slide to chamber a round before firing – which made it slower to get in action and required two hands, as well as making it impossible to render the weapon safe after firing a partial magazine, without dropping the magazine and extracting the chambered round, itself a dangerous operation in a gun without a safety.

This was a major complaint of the military when they tested it, something Colt was for some reason loath to fix in the 1900-1902-1903 series of pistols.

The only exception was the new small-sized Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless, a completely new design with a grip and frame thumb safety at the start of production in 1904.

It is possible that Colt found it cheaper to introduce the features into a new model, and the sales of the 1903 Pocket Hammerless were spectacular in comparison to the 1900/1902/1903 large frame automatics.

The United States War Department solicited designs of semiautomatic pistols in 1899, and chose three samples to test; recoil-operated Mauser C96 "Broomhandle", the unusual "blow-forward" action Steyr Mannlicher M1894, and the Browning-designed Colt M1900, which was not ready until after testing started.

Ergonomics were considered very important, as the pistol was intended for use by cavalry, which meant it had to be readily operated and reloaded from horseback.

After firing a total of 5,800 rounds through the pistol, the only significant problem found was the weakness of the link pins, which was considered readily fixed by the ordnance board.