doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ithaca NID single trigger ca. 1926

Now, I realize that Miller was there first, but Harry Howland was in Ithaca where the guns were being made...which is not an easy factor to omit. If it didn't have that strange trigger shape, my guess would be Miller, especially since the established dates support it...but what about that trigger shape? and what about Howlands patent being so very close to Miller's. Why doesn't it say Miller on the trigger, Was Ithaca producing Miller's design, rather than Miller supplying them to Ithaca...where is the line in this grey zone...maybe this weekend, I'll find time to completely read both patents for suble differences in the mechanism. In the mean time anyone else can read them by simply searching Google patents for those two numbers

Chuck's trigger is clearly marked "PAT'D.", which I'd interpert as "patented". Sooo, is this an early Howland spuriously marked as already patented or is it actually a Miller or is there a Miller/Howland interconnect??

Chuck's trigger is clearly marked "PAT'D.", which I'd interpert as "patented". Sooo, is this an early Howland spuriously marked as already patented or is it actually a Miller or is there a Miller/Howland interconnect??

In looking at the shape of my bobweight, it's clear that it matches the Elmer Miller drawing in its profile.

I'm guessing that the shape of the trigger shoe has been altered on my gun to place the trigger further aft.

Chuck, the trigger on the Parker was wide, the web between the double triggers was removed and the trigger fit in the resulting recess. You would think that Ithaca would have changed the selector indicators to a more factory look instead of just stamping the letters in front of the safety button. The Miller on the Parker was very reliable and use of the safety for barrel selection practical although I rarely changed it. Robert is right about the stock fit being critical for trigger operation, but that is true about most single triggers that I have seen. Be glad you don't have one of the non-selective triggers that Ithaca used on the NIDs. It is a Rube Goldberg device and made of stamped parts.

Jim

Jim,
Yes, this trigger is double wide in the triggerplate. I was really worried it would be a POS and I'd have to modify the gun to DT. I'm very hopeful that this trigger proves reliable.

Most times a gun which is 75 years old with no signs of extensive trigger work in the past will be free of most major bugs. If it was a poor design and had given previous owners trouble some gun hack would have altered it by now. I find that most of these single triggers work well until they are fixed. Since you most likely are right that you have a unlabeled Miller trigger then you should be fine. My single trigger NID was a unlabeled Miller trigger and it worked perfectly.

Chuck,
When you say "bobweight" I take it that you're referring to the inertia block...and speaking of Rabbit's "interconnect" between Miller and Howland, did you notice that Howland actually applied for the patent in June of '28? It's on the top of the drawing posted earlier...
and I just noticed that the Miller drawing has the patent date and patent number cut off...that date is July '25, and the number is 1544673.
So that's from July of '25 to June of '28...if an Ithaca employee applied in June '28, it doesn't stand to reason that he just started jerking around with single triggers in June of that same year...so that pushes it back some

Why wouldn't Ithaca steamroll Miller and his designs when all Miller's designs were based on somebodies elses patented design anyway?...

Oh yeah, I was mistaken about EE Miller going off radar after '29...he was just on to different things like over/unders and sliding cheekpieces during the Depression

Robert,
Yes, sorry. Bobweight is a common term used in airplane systems for inertia weights.

I'm not sure what to make of the patent dates. Sometimes even a large company will respect a patent of a little guy to protect from litigation or just because they are ethical.

I wonder if Walt Snyder has some chronology information on Ithaca ST's?

>
Rube Goldberg! They work just fine until like most ST's, someones fixes them. The one pictured isn't exactly a hand sculpted work of art in itself but they all seem to get the job done if installed and adjusted correctly in a properly set stock as already pointed out. The SNS triggers I've had on 3 NID's all worked fine including one basket case 16ga grade 3E that I restored. It's really quite a simple device working off the right hammer follow through to allow the left sear to be fired. I must agree with you the selector indicator markings on the gun in question here could have been done up a bit more 'from the factory' looking than they did. But there's no argueing that the Miller or Ithaca/Miller triggers worked well no matter how we view the cosmetics of the installation.