the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded. Robert E Lee ~Molɔ̀ːn Labé Skýla~
"Come, shall we go and kill us venison? And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools, Being native burghers of this desert city, Should in their own confines with forked heads Have their round haunches gored."
Well worth the drive to take your work to him rather than ship it. His shop is a monument to old-school analog technology. If you enjoy being surrounded by drilling, reaming, rifling machines, and lathes and mills with more barrels and raw steel stacked around than you can imagine, on a floor caked with dried oil and grease in a small wooden building heated by a big old wood stove then you've attained nirvana. The man is the real deal.
I grew up and lived all of my adult life a mere hour or so in any direction from him. First wandered into his shop back in the late 80's when i needed an 1861 Springfield barrel lined. Went along with a buddy who had commissioned a swamped ML barrel for his project and I took the .58 barrel along to see what's what. That Springfield barrel turned out to be a cloverleaf shooter at 100 yards off the bench. Many years passed and last fall another buddy needed an original .36 Ohio-style half stock barrel freshened so I took him to Bobby Hoyt's. The commission took about 5 minutes to finalize but it then took us about an hour to get out of there because Mr. Hoyt likes to talk (as did we)! The freshened barrel, now a .40, prints its balls into cloverleafs at 50 yards.
"You can lead a man to logic, but you cannot make him think." Joe Harz "Always certain, often right." Keith McCafferty
Leave the man alone.... how can we get any work done with new customers? He has done a rebore on a bad T/C Renegade, a barrel reline on an 1880 SPringfiel TD carbine, and a reline of a Springfiel 1871 for me in the past. It takes a while. I had to love his attitude on the 1871. It didn't shoot to point of aim so I left him ammo. He "tweaked" the barrel by a bit of pressure using the rafters in his shop until it shot to p.o.a.
Bobby recently rebored a 50 cal TC Renegade to a 54 with a 1:60 twist for round balls. Shoots amazingly well with 100 grains of FFg. Could not speak more highly of his work or the end results. Old school cool 😎
