The Crossbow Expert feat (PHB, p. 165) states that you ignore the loading feature of crossbows, but does that mean you still need a free hand in order to reload it?
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2\$\begingroup\$ Related/possible duplicate: How do you load a hand crossbow? \$\endgroup\$ – Adeptus Dec 17 '15 at 1:12
According to Sage Advice, yes
The article is here:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats
And the relevant quote is here:
What does that all mean for a hand crossbow? It means Crossbow Expert makes it possible to fire a hand crossbow more than once with a feature like Extra Attack, provided that you have enough ammunition and you have a hand free to load it for each shot.
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\$\begingroup\$ Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. \$\endgroup\$ – mxyzplk Mar 18 '19 at 20:59
Yes, the feat only affects loading time and allows you to improve your rate of fire through class features like Extra Attack.