You plan on fitting this to an existing stock such as a T/C or a Lyman etc???
While @ 36" it would be "long" compared to what is there now, from a more historical perspective, it wouldn't be long for the type of rifles those were supposedly patterned after/purporting to represent.
There are enough advantages to using a longer barrel (better sight plane, more efficient use of powder, a bit more velocity from the same charge) that unless the longer barrel would hinder the use of the rifle, I would leave it alone at 36".
At worst, if you don't like it - get's hung up a lot while carrying etc, you can always cut it back later.
Unless I was building a specific rifle based on an original that had a barrel sub-36", I would use a 36" barrel on any half-stock patterned after a 1840's onward design to keep it "typical" of what would have been built "back when".