Miller Triggers

[Dan May]

Austin and all,

No person or company that I know of was ever officially licensed by the Miller Company to install their triggers. They always retained the trademarks and kept it in house to the best of my knowledge (especially after their experience with Ithaca). There have been Miller triggers installed with take-out parts from other guns and I expect that practice continues to this day to some degree. If it is stamped Miller, however, it can be assumed that it was installed by the Miller Brothers, Doug Turnbull or now, us.

An acquaintance of Howard Miller's shared an anecdote with me at the Northeast shoot. He was visiting with Howard at his shop and Howard was talking about those that try to copy his trigger. He said, "A lot of people try to copy my triggers, but nobody has my hands." He said this as he was filing and fitting a trigger. What a cool story.

Dan

[Austin W Hogan]

Dan; I think you are probably correct. Installing a Miller is not an easy task, and probably impossible without "inside" information from the Millers.
My remaining Miller/Parker is the 1920 vintage VHE live bird gun. I also have a similar era Fox C with the same model Miller. Miller equipped exposed hammer Parkers are known.
Has anyone seen a W 21 or Rem 32 with a Miller?

Best, Austin

[Drew Hause]

Rem 32

[Dan May]

The Millers were granted patents for over/under triggers in 1933, 1938, 1951 and 1962. As Drew shows above, the Model 32 was a very common conversion. I've never seen a converted 21, the 21 single trigger is usually pretty reliable. But never say never!

Dan

[Twice Shooter]

Hi Austin, I have a Model 21 trap gun with a Miller. It has the toggle selector in front of the triger. Cheers, Tom

[Austin W Hogan]

Thanks, Tom, but you lost me a big bet; I figured Murphy would have had it!

Best Austin

[Dan May]

Like I said, never say never! That's what makes this all so much fun. I think the Millers put one of their triggers in everything at one time or another. They were even working on set triggers for bolt action rifles, I have a few of the prototypes. Crazy!