On priming the pan
A long time ago I was shown by a master flintlock shooter how he primed his pan whilst shooting next to him at a competition. His rifle fired as fast and as consistently as anything on the line, flint or percussion. And he hit everything he shot at. He showed me how he primed to get this consistent ignition:
On his right-handed rifle, and after loading the charge and patched r.b., he laid the rifle in the crook of his arm, pointing downrange.
He filled the pan half full, tilted the rifle with the pan upward just enough so when he tapped lightly on the bottom of the pan, the touch-hole got covered with priming powder (looked like 4fg as I remember).
Then, he took his vent pick and ran it through the priming powder, well into the main charge in the barrel. He did this until he was satisfied the main charge was lined with priming powder. This method also left a slight tunnel through the main charge to aid ignition.
He then closed the frizzen on the pan, tilted the rifle so the pan was slightly downward and gave the rifle a few gentle raps to move the priming away from the touchhole. This gave a little "air" space between the priming and the touchhole to let the sparks do their work quickly, and without having to burn through any extra powder before the rifle fired.
He did all this very quickly, and consistently. And he was a most excellent shot, as I mentioned before. Whenever I hunt with a flintlock, I always use this method to prime. I also check my priming fairly regularly throughout a day's hunt.
What I've found that works very well for a vent pick, is a 56mm bass E (6th) acoustic guitar string with the bronze winding stripped off about an inch and a half, and then leaving about an inch and a half of the winding left on for a grip. These work very well to push priming powder through the main charge via the touchhole.
This is all for nothing more than a FWIW info post. It certainly works for me, and you may want to try it for yourself. If your lock has a good sharp flint in its jaws adjusted correctly, and your frizzen has a good hard face on it, that's a very good start in your new experience with a flintlock. Klatches are going to happen for you from time to time, but that's just part of your journey learning the care and feeding of a flintlock rifle (or smoothie).
Have fun with your new gun.