I know it's bad policy to post on old threads, but trying to revive these discussions with the concept of Quickdraw and carrying 10 or 12 hand crossbow. Or even 40 of them. Just dropping a you go, if even into like an open sack that hangs from your hip. 

Quote from AhabDownUnder >>

I know it's bad policy to post on old threads, but trying to revive these discussions with the concept of Quickdraw and carrying 10 or 12 hand crossbow. Or even 40 of them. Just dropping a you go, if even into like an open sack that hangs from your hip. 

 
At 3 lbs a piece, you’re talking about 120 ponds of crossbows. Besides, you can only draw one crossbow for free each turn, the second one would cost you your whole Action.

This is a fairly old thread, but, where is it stated in the ammunition property that it requires a free hand to reload?

 Edit: The book I have states exactly like this:

Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition properly lo make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece  of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver,  case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute lo search the battlefield.

Also, I went ahead and checked the updated version of the ammunition property and the crossbow expert description.
The REVISED ammunition property says you do need a free hand to reload the crossbow, but at the same time, the REVISED crossbow expert does not require you have a second hand crossbow to make the extra attack.

Seems to me Crossbow expert can grant you an extra attack in either the original or revised description.