A bow is so much better then a crossbow in this game and crafting arrows isn’t that hard either.
I use my bow mainly against Zeds that have area attacks like Corrosive Zeds or Shocker Zeds, from mu experience you can not out range a Corrosive Zed with a crossbow with make a crossbow pointless to use against those.
Those 2 Zeds are the most dangerous when playing a fairly new char to me.
When reaching level 7 or so I have no problem killing Hulks with my bow and leveling up your bow skills is easy and almost free to do so.
( Activate auto pickup Arrows, shoot all your arrows 1 tile away, no need for a target , rinse and repeat till you got the level you want. )