Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Miller KODIAK mount

I finally took the time to really check out a Miller KODIAK mount I have had for a while. This one is for 7/8" scopes and I used a quite beat up Norman Ford Texan while experimenting. This mount had the spacers that are needed when used on an 1899/99 due to the rear of the receiver being lower than the front. I found the spacers were very hard to keep in place and would fall out every time I loosened the mount to adjust the position - that was very frustrating until I found a simple solution...



The rear mount rests on the rounded end of two rather small screws, there are even smaller set screws to lock them in place.








These mounts have quite a bit of adjustment and should work with fixed scopes in most cases. It appears to have enough elevation adjustment on an 1899 for use with a fixed scope. Adjusting the rear all the way down looked like it would just barely get the elevation low enough, I found changing the position of the front mount raised the front and gained a bit more adjustment. Windage could be adjusted by drifting the front attachment or by tilting the rear mount on the scope, which allows for a lot of adjustment, or to a lesser extent by adjusting the elevation screws unevenly to move the windage No matter what, even though it looks like it would work, it seems to me it would be hard to use just the mount for all adjusting.



You can see by moving the mount forward on the scope it reduced the bow in the front mount which raised the front slightly.


Lyman evidently thought this mount was suitable for their fixed Alaskan judging from the picture on the box flap.



If anyone thinks this mount might work on a 1920, I think it mounts to low to allow the bolt to clear the scope, I held this mount on a 20/26 with the bolt open and it had interference (of course I could not actually attach the mount because the 20/26 does not have a rear sight dovetail).

I also have held it to a 23A and the rear mount is too wide for the screws to contact the receiver, I do not know it they made a narrower rear mount for these or not.

IMO this is an very interesting and unique mount, but it does not appear to be a very good mount, it is not really held solidly in position and if used with a fixed scope as shown by Lyman, I think it would be very hard to adjust.

Very interesting and thanks for putting up the post. So I guess its just shear downward pressure that holds the rear of the assembly in place. I have a Belding and Mull mount on a Super Sporter I'm trying to adapt to a Weaver J4. I have the BM scope (no jokes please) but I'll be damned if I know how to adjust it. Thanks again for the pics, text and post.

Very neat. I've seen them, but not up close except at a SavageFest maybe. Great pics and great detail on the explanations.

That's great Gene, very thorough reporting, thanks. It looks like a very complicated mount, must be prone to movement, even after the tedious set-up. The only design advantage seems to be the adjustable eye-relief.., which is cool.

As Rory stated... "I've seen them, but not up close except at a SavageFest maybe. Great pics and great detail on the explanations."

The Stith rear mount is much better. How would you compare the front mount of the two?

Wouldn't make a very good handle would it Roy?

Gene, that is a super nice boxed Alaskan!

The front mount on these is all that holds the scope & mount, it might be fine but the the spring base is really stiff and there is a lot of pressure held just by the small rear tabs on the front. The front also seems to need pressure to keep it in position, this one is not a tight fit. On a Stith mount the front dovetail has little or no force on it (not figuring in Roy's carrying habits).



Here is the mount held on a couple other guns, when I got the mount I thought it might work on a 23A but as you can see that is not possible with the current rear. It also looks like it would not work even if you had a rear mount that fit because the rear sight dovetail is so far back the front mount would be so close to the rear there would not be enough length between the two to allow the mount to bow enough to work.

There's probably a good reason mounts are designed and built differently today. Too many Roy's carrying the dumb things by their head.

I can only imagine what a mount like that might do to a modern aluminum tube scope, especially to the internal structure of a variable. How does that Ford Texan compare to a Lyman Alaskan?

Our dear departed legal counselor, Mark Benenson, introduced me to the Miller Kodiak mounts. I was very interested in that design when I started my quest for a better Stith replacement.

Mark knew the designer and company owner and I was able to track him down in 2005. He was 99 at the time. I had a very interesting conversation with him on the phone. The company dissolved when he was struck with some obscure disease that took over 3 years to recover from. His nephew was supposed to keep the company going but it ended in bankruptcy and liquidation. By the time he had recovered it was all gone. I was hoping he had kept a cache of parts but it all went at the liquidation sale. Johnny Miller was quite a figure in the early aviation industry. He also loved guns and hunting which led to the founding of Miller Kodiak.

As to the mount itself, I have to say it qualifies for a Rube Goldberg rating. I set up a couple of configurations on 99s and shot them at the range. They performed OK on the bench but I would never have enough confidence to take one hunting. Maybe if it was used in the blind and transported there in a hard case.

Wasn’t there also a Miller Trigger Attachment that was used to eliminate the first stage of two stage military triggers? Was that the same Mr. Miller?

I did another test to measure just how much down force applied by that mount, It feels like a lot but only measures 10# with the base set a little forward and near the front of the scope (where I had it last) - still all that is being held by one small tab at the front.



As for the comparison between the Alaskan and the Texan, I found my Alaskan would not focus well, I had to turn it all the way in as far as I could to get it close and by then the crosshairs were starting to get out of focus. I think if I pulled the locking ring it might focus, there has to be something wrong with that scope. Both have about the same eye relief but the Texan has thicker crosshairs. Both are really clear.

Both of my Texans are about the same optically, clear and easily focused. I had the better one but the locking ring on it was all chewed up with pliers marks and was extremely hard to turn (requiring pliers to remove it -- padded this time though), I bought the rough one because the best part of it was that ring & I swapped them, the damaged ring turns freely on the other scope but looks really bad.

Part of the poor picture through the Alaskan is the position of the camera, but part of it also is the poor focus.



This show the scopes with the focus set (as good as possible)

I looked through the limited amount of marketing material I have on them and saw no mention of triggers.

I do have a NIB Savage 99 mount with an invoice signed by John Miller. I bet with that and 5 bucks I could get a cup a coffee

Gene's the winner for "best trigger pull weight tester" !!