Ron Long was one of the very best rifleman and gunsmith this sport ever had. 

He was one of my first mentors. I never got to meet him in person but, we talked a lot on the phone, in the '80's. His bullet molds are some of the best. They are mostly spitzers, lathe cut for competition. 

Your rifle will shoot well after it's set up, with the BSer and a good load. His advise to me for my 32/40 was to set the BSer at .035 - .050 of the base of the bullet, left unengraved.

"Unengraved" means the bullet's nose does not engage the rifling - i.e., it's not "engraved" by it.  Interestingly, I've read more than once that that an "engraved" breech-seated bullet is exactly what you do want.  Comments?

Bill Lawrence

When Ballard Rifle co. started out one of the early great gunsmiths they hired as Production Manager was Ron Long. Ron's expertise with single shots, especially the Ballard rifles was (along with several other great gunsmiths!) one reason the company built such wonderful clones of the original Ballard rifles.
John Dutcher (author of Ballard, The Great American Singleshot Rifle) told me he had Ron do most of the work anytime he needed something on a Ballard rifle. That continued until Ron's health became an issue.
Not many in the world of old single shot rifles who haven't heard of Ron Long; he's pretty legendary.

The top of the barrel is marked Ron Long Denver, CO would Ron have taken an existing Ballard action to build this rifle or did he make new Ballard actions.  The rifle was built left-handed as the gun came with a beautiful set of scheutzen butt stock, forearm and palm rest.  I received with it setup for a right-handed shooter.  I'm interested in putting the left-handed stock on to try it out, since I'm left-eye dominate and shoot right-handed.  Been very interesting reading the comments so far. Thanks