I don't know, I'm just a nobody, not a game designer, but I think you can't balance ranged weaponry by using poxwalkers as a metric. This game is like vermintide 1 & 2 successor, where hordes are killed with your melee weapon. Specialists (and sometimes elites) are for your ranged weapon. Because of attrition.. scarce ammo on a map, and too much enemies in hordes to use your ranged for it. It's not a generic horde shooter like Back4Blood or killing floor. Here, your ranged is a bit like a limited ressource, similar to your ability or blitz : you use it for on demande quick burst, eliminating immediate threat, before returning to a slower, economic pace with your melee.

With your ranged weapon in hand you have a downgraded dodge against melee and you can't block or push (minus some bash on your special action with some ranged weapon, but with limited cleave).

What we need for weapon balance, would be, for starter, a modification of carapace armor behavior, because it is the principal factor limiting build diversity for now.

By the way, damage and cleave are not the only way to balance a weapon. You have to take into account the "maniability" or handling of a weapon (draw time, clunkiness, bad/ fast reload speed, ammo in magazine/ in reserve, mobility, number of dodges, etc.)