I bought my very first black powder gun, a flintlock, just over a year ago so I don't pretend to be an expert. But I have shot my flintlocks a lot over that year and I've noticed a few things that worked for me. One of my guns is the Traditions Kentucky rifle so I'm familiar with what you're shooting.
In my mind when I pull the trigger and the gun does not fire, assuming it's been properly loaded, one of two things has occurred. Either the pan powder did not ignite, which I call a misfire, or the pan ignited but the main charge did not, which I consider a pan flash.
If the pan powder does not ignite it's pretty much always some problem with the flint or frizzen. I always wipe my thumb across the frizzen and flint (carefully as the flint should be sharp) to remove soot, just before bringing the hammer to full ****. On damp or humid days sometimes that's not enough and after every half dozen or so shots I'll wipe both flint and frizzen with an alcohol pad. If I can see that the flint is getting pretty blunt or if I still get a misfire after an alcohol wipe then the flint needs either knapped or replaced. If I can knap the edge then move the flint forward enough to close the gap between flint and frizzen (at half ****) to 1/8" or so the flint is still good, but if it's too short to move forward that much then it needs replaced. I'd say I average about 60 or so shots per flint before they have to be replaced, and they'll have been knapped probably twice by then. This can really vary though as I've had flints that were trash after 10 shots and others that were still good after 100.
Pan flashes are a completely different problem. I do not swab my barrel between shots and usually shoot 24-32 shots from one gun in a session. I always pick the touch hole before each shot, and have noticed that at first I can feel the powder with my pick, but as the shot count goes up sometimes I can't feel it, and that's about when pan flashes are likely to occur. Somewhere around 20 shots is where I usually notice an increase in pan flashes. I always use 4f in my pan and what I've been doing lately that seems to really cut down on pan flashes is to dump a very small quantity of powder into the pan, then tilt the rifle to the left allowing a little powder into the touch hole. Then I add more powder to just below level fill the pan and tap to even it out. Since I've been doing this I seldom get a flash in the pan.
At first I thought this method might give me the fuse effect and cause hang fires but that hasn't been an issue. I know there's a lot of debate about using a different size powder in the pan from the main charge, but I'm simply telling you what's worked for me. On all my .50 caliber Traditions rifles I use 3f as charge and 4f as prime. And just to kick the hornets nest a bit more I'll say that I've tried using 4f as both charge and prime and that method pretty much completely eliminates any flashes in the pan.
I shoot my flintlocks 3 times a week weather permitting and I think I learn a little more about them every time out. You just need to putter around and try things till you find what works best for you. I've tried lots of different things I read here or elsewhere. Some worked out some didn't, but that's all part of what keeps this hobby interesting.
