Hi! Thanks a lot for the feedback.
About the weapon (or any other item) bonus: You are right, the bonus works the same with any kind of item, but it’s not necessarily the same as it depends on the wisdom roll you have to do when you get any item (whether you buy it or make it yourself). This bonus is an abstract way to represent the quality of the item, how good you are using it and even how good you did while shopping. The price of traditional weapons even depends on how good you did in the roll. If the bonus of your weapon is low this might be because you bought a low quality thing or your training with it is not very good. So it’s perfectly possible for a hunter with a sling to be more effective than another using a firearm.
About the range: This also surprised me a lot when I did some research about weapons, but it is true—a sling has a better range than a matchlock or a flintlock pistol! A well trained slinger can shoot even farther: around 300 meters. The world record is more than 400! The range in the table is the average maximum for each weapon. Effective range would probably be the half.
In any case, the game is not design for a very tactical combat.
Let me know if you have more questions, and thanks again!