OK, I have my new rifle - will get pictures up soon.
Overall, I am very pleased with its appearance and feel. Handles nicely, wood is of good layout, fit and finish is quite good for a $1500 muzzle loader.
I also bought a .715" roundball mold with it. The balls I cast a week ago are measuring out at .7175" and can be started with a .010" cotton patch. They are pretty much pure lead as I emptied out my pot as much as possible before casting these up. I hope the mold purchase was a good move. The sprue is quite pronounced and I wonder if this can upset accuracy if it is not loaded on center with the bore?
The crowning does cut the patch so I will have to smooth it out as Daryl mentioned.

I have yet to measure the internal dimensions of the bore but can say that this rifle has VERY shallow rifling. The Dixie Gun catalog says .004" but I doubt it is that deep although in a big bore barrel, it is harder for me to judge just by looking and feeling. They say .724" bore and .732" grooves. I think it is tighter than that as my .7175" balls just slip down the bore with no perceptable wiggling.

So, with that tight fit, I am thinking of using some 12ga felt wads soaked in lube, sort of making a "wonder wad" on top of a card or veg over powder wad to insure there is enough lube in the system since it looks like that mold will not allow a very thick patch. Pretty much like a wad column in a BP cartridge. Also, I am going to powder coat some balls to see if I can forgo the patch altogether since that can eliminate leading and will give me a more snug fit of the unpatched ball going down the bore. I will go over to castboolits to see if anybody there is having success powder coating round balls.