I used ranged dwarves to great extent in my first two dwarf forum forts and they work perfectly fine.... Uh, and I never even looked at their ammo menu, as it works as it is.
a) decide which ranged weapon to use fortresswide
- hint: crossbows suck, javelin throwers are way better, or you can use axe throwers for simple cutting fun
b) make sure, there is no other ammo in the whole fortress (they love to pick the wrong ammo..., just designate everything unwanted for melting or forbid it)
c) create squad, set uniform during creation to archer (the premade one)
d) manually assign the weapon, and if you like, other items, to the dwarves
e) build an archery range overlapping a barracks, both set to active
- archery range should have as many targets as you have squads, be careful, they go through ammo rather quick, but do NOT use different ammo for training and combat, they will always screw this up
- I used copper ammo, as it is is sufficient to hurt most invaders, but there is more then enough copper on MWDF maps
- barracks = a single armor stand/weaponrack/chest
- I usually set the barracks to training only, but nothing else
- set squad to active (again no rocket science needed, ignore schedule and bullshit... just select squad in s-menu, press t, done)
-> everything is fine
Honestly, there is nothing really difficult about it... I never had even the slightest problems with it, except when i accidentally had a few hammerheads in my fortress, which were now carried around instead of axe heads and prevented them from doing anything... And I usually ignore most of the menu options...
PS: Hexxedgarish used 2 squads with javelin throwers and one with axe throwers... And even then it was no problem...
