JWL
There are likely a number of people on this forum who would happily offer suggestions to help you get started with your 32-40. A few additional bits of info would ensure that advice given is apropos to your needs. It would go a long way to getting useful advice if you provide action type and what type of shooting you plan to pursue as well as if you are a black powder or smokeless powder shooter.
As an example, if your rifle has a Stevens 44 action, loads would have to be tamed-down and perhaps you would use a lighter bullet to keep it stable at lower chamber pressures required by that rifle. Now if you have a stronger action, you then would be able to drive a heavier bullet faster and keep it stable from your 1:16 barrel.
Best of luck with getting your rifle shooting properly.

Length / Weight is also dependant on bullet design. A spitzer bullet will weigh less than a flat nose bullet of equal length. To say a bullet of X length is correct for a particular use may not hold true if the bullets design is not also taken into consideration.

Thanks for the info given thus far. In answer to your questions the action is a hepburn and I intend to shoot smokeless.

JWL
rkaires has suggested what should be a good bullet design for your rifle. You might want to consider modifying the dimensions so the as-cast base band of the bullet is approximately .001" over groove diameter. There is a calculator available online to help determine correct bullet length for your rifle. As a Hepburn is a stronger action, you can drive the bullet up to the velocity limit of a plain base bullet. I'm not recommending higher velocity but your rifle could handle relatively heavy cast bullet loads.
That calculator can be found at: (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)
at the bottom left of navigation bar, click Barrel Twist Calculator. Have fun!

The flat nose bullet shown would be a very good choice. What you do not want to do is start out with a long spitzer bullet that needs to be pushed hard to stabize. It will only lead to frustration from one outing to the next. After using a variety of long spitzer bullets in competition over the last 14 years I am finding no increased wind drift the past two years while now using a cylindrical flat nose bullet with a length of .970 in my 32-40's. I have also noticed an increase in day in and day out overall consistency. 

JLouis

John it is interesting to hear of your bullet length.  I have not been shooting these rifles for very long, but have been using three bullets of length 1.05" in my 1:14 twist Badger barrel.   Velocities are low as I'm using straight black powder.

With the Saeco 200gr bullet and Fg I get a very small amount of tipping at 200 yards at a range with elevation of ~3000 feet in the summer.   At a lower elevation range with an increased distance of 200m I get tipping with Fg and must switch to FFg.  Now that it's winter, the tipping is back .

I've switched to a similar bullet that Steve Brooks made for me, but it has a smaller meplat nose, like on the Hoch 200gr semi-spitzer.  Tipping is noticeably less in winter ( but still a little bit is present ) and it shoots almost exactly 1 moa higher than the Saeco bullet. 

I've also played a very little bit with an elliptical paper patched bullet of the same length and it seems pretty stable in cold weather at 200m using only Fg.  With Fg it shoots approximately the same elevation in cold weather as the new Brooks bullet, but it's not a completely fair comparison as it's lighter due to the slender nose.

Chris.

Thank you John.   I'm still working hard on the learning to shoot part.    

I have been thinking of trying a shorter bullet to eliminate tipping year round so that I can remove that variable.

Chris.