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[Immortal-D]

...and do so directly next to the other half of the squad who are all shooting archery targets like I want, I cry a little   Because this tells me I set up the orders and room correctly, the Dwarves are simply making their own priorities.

Edit: I figured out the problem, but not the solution-

A huge pile of bolts, without containers

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Only 2 stacks of bolts show as available in the squad's ammo menu

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The full inventory of bolts

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I give up, lol.  I know Marksdwarf trouble isn't exactly a new problem.  Still though, I am always amused when I find something new that can go wrong.  Best to just stick with axes, I think.

[Goatmaan]

I just got my xbow squads to use battle axes, happy day.

  Goatmaan

[Shonai_Dweller]

Sorry, but what is your problem exactly?
Unlike quite a few people, your marksdwarves are working perfectly. Both training combat skills and practising their archery.

[Haymaker]

This is not 100% tested, but since each archery target is counted a barrack and archery practice doesn't seem to be as low priority activity as it used to be, just setting up loads and loads of targets seems to encourage marksdorfs to shoot more. In one fort I have, I gave 10 targets per a squad, so each dorf gets their personal target they had a barrack too because I wanted them to train other military skills

That was quite effective setup, I had constant demand on wood and bone bolts!

Also, have you tried giving the training order as train 1 min and just stacking it up for each month? Just like if you want to inticite more sparring you give footmen multiple 2 min train orders, you do the same with marksdwarves. Gladly at the current forth, one third of my marksdwarves are shooting targets when bolts allow it (Sparse wood and wild animal population hurts their training)

[Goatmaan]

What are the squads ammo set at? 25 bolts per dwarf in squad, and I "think " 25 training bolts too.
I'm still on 40.19 and I'm pretty sure the combat/ training bolts got changed.
I just use hunters to train xbow to +5, then squad them into a 2 target barracks.

  Goatmaan

Ok, that's the problem, set ammo to 25 PER DWARF in squad, and 25 per hunter too.
At least you posted the screenshots right!! They *rarely* show on my phone, so I didn't bother looking the first time.
And you can set wood/bone for training,.and metal for combat.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yeah, your whole squad is limited to 30 bolts :p

Also, in other cases Hunters have first pick on ammo...Once, I tried to kill a titan with embark party...I succeeded, but only one of the 5 archers picked up their bolts. Other 100 were claimed by nonexistent hunters :v

[Sanctume]

Make 1 QSP for ammo, no bins and fits nicely anywhere for easy access. 
Whether QSP is exploit or not, the no bins is the key to getting around to the issues with ammo and bins.

Don't bother with wood and bone bolts when you have access to copper.  Even if the mix ammo type is suppose to be fixed, I think it is much simple to use all metal bolts for training and combat.

Also, iirc, the number of bolts applies to all the squad.  So it is better to set the Squad bolts to 200 to 250, so each squad of 10 will carry 20 to 25 bolts each. 
250 bolts is just 10x build copper bolts in a forge.

1 wood log = wooded bolts [25]
1 bone bolt = bone bolt [5]
1 copper ore = 4 copper bars = 4x copper bolts [25]

Even better, have a forge profiles to make copper bolts on repeat for Dabbling and Novice, maybe Competent at most.  This gives the peasants a better chance to mood weaponsmithing. 

I also always make 10x archery targets for a squad of marksdwarf.

And I micro toggle train on a separate barracks from an armor stand if I want them to cross train for something else.

[Fleeting Frames]

I'd suggest setting bolts to 50 per dwarf, at least.

This is because a dwarf will pick up bolts until quiver has at least 25 bolts in it - meaning that if they shoot a few and then pause the shooting halfway through, they'll go pick up another stack which may prevent other squadmates from picking up bolts.

Beyond the obvious downside of the experience going to bone or wood crafting rather than weaponsmithing, making bone/wood bolts has one more downside: They're lighter. A stack or two of metal bolts is pretty heavy, so that's going to slow down your marksdwarves from running into combat.

[Immortal-D]

Yeah, your whole squad is limited to 30 bolts :p

  Thanks everyone.  I think this is just a good example of why you shouldn't Dwarf when sleepy.  I have always assigned my squads hundreds of bolts.  And for some reason, this time I thought it was on a per-Dwarf basis.  I am aware that I have set material types to both combat and training.  In this case, I need as much practice as I can get...

Edit: After upping the bolt count to 300... still only a couple will train at one time   Rest are listed in teh units menu as 'soldier, no activity'.  Freaking Dwarves, man.

[lcy03406]

Half dodging demonstration and half archery practice is definitely wrong, it should be dodging PRACTICE, so every one bolt can train two dwarves.

[mikekchar]

Not 100% sure, but when setting up archery targets, I've found it to be beneficial to put them 1 space apart.  That way when they miss the target it can fall into the channel I dig behind the targets (and I can recover them).  If you put the targets side by side then when they miss, they hit the adjacent target and you can't recover them.  The big problem with this is that it tends to unstack the bolts.  So you can remelt them to exploit the roundoff error in melting (everlasting copper supply), or you end up with bolts all over the place.  Is there an easy way to restack bolts?  My marksdwarfs have their entire barracks as an ammo stockpile :-)

[Elvang]

The big problem with this is that it tends to unstack the bolts.  So you can remelt them to exploit the roundoff error in melting (everlasting copper supply), or you end up with bolts all over the place.  Is there an easy way to restack bolts?  My marksdwarfs have their entire barracks as an ammo stockpile :-)

AFAIK, there is no way to stack/re-stack items (unless there is a DFHack plugin/script for it). More hauling jobs to stockpile, but marksdwarves should put 25 stacks of 1 bolt in their quivers just as readily as 1 stack of 25. This is a case where you'll want to use QSPs to cut down on travel time when re-equipping.

[Fleeting Frames]

There are scripts for combine-plants and combine-drinks that I use a lot. If you edit it to remove safeties, it also works on some other items (and crashes itself, though not the game, on others like fishes), though the results vary in usefulness (masonry and stonecrafting jobs use whole stack of stone, for instance).

Also, if it hits the archery target, the item doesn't really disappear, just becomes a broken bolt < that can't be interacted with (though can be removed by dfhack's clean command).

More complete splitting can be done by up-down twisted tunnel shooting (there's a diagram on the wiki), but I've never managed to get it to work.