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[Laserhead]

I've been looking at my marksdwarfs and it seems the lion's share of their encumberance is due to ammo. I did the calculation and it turns out each copper crossbow bolt is something like 20000gr, by comparison an actual crossbow bolt might be something like 400gr. I'm thinking this is because they are being modeled as a solid chunk of copper, rather than a wooden or hollow metal shaft with a metal head. Seems like you might be able to fix that with modding somehow, I know there is logic for assembling ballista arrows with a metal tip and wooden shaft, but I don't know if the end product weight is what you'd expect there either. I'm also a little concerned about damage if they are made lighter, as I'm not sure how much velocity figures into the equation for projectile damage. Has anyone tried to make more realistic ammo? Does it work?

[Dorflord]

IIRC there is a minor mod named "broken arrow" that attempts to solve unrealistic ranged weapons, although I'm unsure about its details. I personally assign my metal bolts to my veteran marksdwarf squads whilst my newbs use bone and wood. This still allows my newbs to chip bones etc. and get to the fray quickly to gain some experience, and a machinegunner elite marksdwarf firing silver bolts is a frightening sight indeed.

[RockBiterSon]

If you're up for reading a whole forum thread, look here:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=116151.0
Very informative, includes a link to broken arrow, and at some point in the conversation (if my memory serves) they discus bolt wieght.

[Laserhead]

I'm on top of a mountain of copper, so it is actually simpler to make copper bolts for all. I'm a fan of "set the marksdwarfs on a battlement and let the enemy come to them" so mobility isn't a huge issue, except when a hauler grabs a bin weighing hundreds of kilos and spends a few days hauling it to one bolt and back.

[TheCoolSideofthePIllow]

I am not sure if this works, but last night a friend of mine and I were talking about DF and he mentioned a story that might help you:

He read something about a guy who made a cat blood launcher. He put all the adult female cats in a 1x1 space with a grate in the floor (this is where I don't know if it still works) so whenever the adults gave birth to kittens, the kittens fell through the grate into a pit. The pit was at the bottom of a J bend that, when a level was pulled, would open a flood gate, pressurizing the J bend and launching the blood of the dead kittens through the grate, killing just about anything that was in it's path.

... And then I realized you want like crossbow bolts or arrows... You could still use cats though. Murder them, carve their bones into bolts/arrows. Also make sure to enable ammo recovery; it's not enabled by default so all expended ammo that is still useable is never used again.