A new player looking for some help.

[John___Doe]

A few more early game questions (cause I have not survived into the mid game yet)

Gal to Peasant ratio?
I was playing with the Gals I could rescue and using Peasants for the rest of the crew. I also only had 10 Loknar which I used for the cave/underground missions.

Best early pistol?
I've enjoyed the Confederate Eagle and the Handcannon but they are heavy for Peasants. Best Peasant handgun?

Best early SMG/Rifle?
My peasants are usually too weak to carry a decent shotgun in the early game so I stick them with an SMG or a Rifle. Assault SMG might be my favorite. Linux SMG for the Gals or the peasants that can carry it.

Best early Throwable bomb?
I only embraced the Black Powder Bomb a few playthroughs in but I really like it now on almost everyone who can fit one on their loadout. Better grenade choices?

The appropriate gal to peasant ratio depends on the mission. Peasants take a lot of time to train, and trained peasants you ideally want to conserve for the handful of missions only they can do. Regular peasants are little more than shotgun and bandage caddies, and you should feel no compunction about throwing a dozen of them away to save a gal. If you need siz gals and can only take six troops, take six gals. If you need six gals and can take 12, take six gals and six peasants.

Shiny Niner is the best peasant pistol. Good mix of accuracy, damage, firing rate, and weight.

Best early rifle is the rcf carbine, for the same reasons.

HE grenades are lighter than black powders, which for peasants makes a big difference. They also do not detonate immediately, which has advantages and disadvantages.

[Amoebka]

I very strongly disagree about giving peasants any handguns at all. Unlike SMGs or shotguns, they don't provide aiming assist, and peasant accuracy is absolute garbage. Even worse, handguns will often fail to kill even early game enemies in one hit, and peasants can't survive reaction fire.

They really should be using shotguns only, even if it means getting over the weight capacity, and even if it means carrying nothing else. You can also use waster backpacks to increase carry weight for the ones that really need it. Stop loading peasants up with medkits, grenades and other garbage.

[Psyentific]

Handguns and one-handed SMGs are best used as a light ranged option for melee troops; something to fit in your quickdraw slot that can either apply damage to targets you can't safely close-and-melee, or to sweep chaff like zombies/civilians. Think like a 40k space marine - chainsword in one hand and bolt pistol in the other.
Two-handed SMGs have a decent shooting bonus and I find they're best used as a short-to-midrange autogun; something to screen ahead of your rifle troops and provide backup for your scout teams. They're not quite as range-restricted as shotguns and are a bit better at dealing with light armor (guild security etc) but suffer from mostly the same woes. The early 2h SMGs like Spraygun and Bandit SMG are quite awful (bad accuracy and low damage) and I avoid them, but later military-grade ones are decent for mass-equipping expendable mooks. A Peasant wearing Camo Pants (or Fusilier) with Military Shotgun or Assault SMG or LASS/Panzerfaust is a classic garrison trooper or bullet magnet for me.
Shotguns are basically an armor check; if the target has enough armor to resist the average shotgun pellet then he will be fine. If he doesn't have more armor then he will be very dead from repeated hits generating average damage. That said, I generally get poor results from running a shotguns-only squad outside of missions like civilians, bandits, and zombies. It's practical to have a few rifles and gunners backing up the shotgun teams to thin out the enemies and create openings for the close-range teams to exploit.