This passage about fighting in NZ in the early decades of the 1800s struck me:
Those encounters showed that, while possession of a few muskets could create community fear in areas that had little access to them, it seldom deterred opposing warriors. In fact, counter-tactics were soon devised. Murupaenga, the Ngāti Whātua leader at Moremonui, and ‘a man of very quick perceptions’, saw that the slow-burning powder used in trade muskets caused a delay between trigger and discharge, during which the target could move; he calmly ordered his men to fall to the ground as Ngāpuhi muskets were levelled and fired, and to leap up again and charge before the muskets could be reloaded.
Smart!
From Tangata Whenua: A History (Kindle Locations 3540-3544).
Also explained: the flintlock muskets that were traded to Māori were less reliable, less accurate and less powerful than the military muskets.