No offense at all. I actually am working on acquiring a leather frizzen guard, which I can put over the frizzen after priming the pan. That way, if the mechanism were to fail when ramming, the Flint will hit the leather and won't make any sparks. I can keep my "muh historical accuracy" and be safe while doing it.
This reply indicates that you intend to prime the pan before you start loading the main powder charge into the barrel.
As many have said, this is the way the military were trained to load their gun. I seriously doubt that the average person or hunter back in the 17th and 18th century would do it this way. What I'm getting at is, unless you are a part of a military reenactment group, there is no reason to prime the pan before loading the main powder charge.
Sorry if this has already been covered but I want to add the following:
It's just my opinion but the safest way to load a flintlock is as follows:
1. If it is not open, open the pan cover and lower the cock and flint into the fired position. Do
not place the hammer in the half cock position and close the pan cover. If you wish, you can install the frizzen cover at this stage.
2. Pour the measured powder down the barrel.
3. Place the patch on the muzzle and place the ball into the center of it.
4. Start the patched ball down the bore and ram it down to the powder in stages by grabbing the ramrod no more than 1 foot above the muzzle and shoving the ramrod down. Repeat this until the ball is firmly sitting on the powder charge.
5. With the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, pull the cock (hammer) to the half cocked position.
6. Prime the pan and close the frizzen. At this stage, if it is not already on the frizzen, install the leather flint guard.
The gun is now ready to be carried if your hunting or you don't want to shoot it right then.
Notice, with the cock (hammer) fully down while your loading the barrel, there is no chance of it jarring loose from the half cock notch and falling. Having the cock in the fired position is especially important if the gun has a double set trigger.
There have been cases where the shooter placed the cock in the "half cock" position but it wasn't really in the half cock notch. Instead, the sear was caught by the fly and just seemed to be at half cock because it stopped in a position that was near the place the half cock notch would have positioned it.
In this condition, with the sear resting on the fly, any sharp bump can cause the sear to jump over the half cock notch and allow the cock to fall.
Also, you should know, if the pan cover is closed on a gun that has had the main powder charge dropped down the barrel and the cock does fall, the flint will hit the frizzen.
Even though there is no priming in the pan, if this happens, the sparks from the flint hitting the frizzen can fly thru the vent hole and the gun will fire. This has happened hundreds of times in the past.