Archaeik |
The repeating crossbow (whether heavy or light) holds 5 crossbow bolts. As long as it holds bolts, you can reload it by pulling the reloading lever (a free action). Loading a new case of 5 bolts is a full-round action that provokes attacks of opportunity.
You can fire a repeating crossbow with one hand or fire a repeating crossbow in each hand in the same manner as you would a normal crossbow of the same size. However, you must fire the weapon with two hands in order to use the reloading lever, and you must use two hands to load a new case of bolts.
They each have the same qualities of their normal counterparts aside from the additional stipulation that to use the reload lever, it must be fired in two hands (rather than at an attack penalty in one hand - in other words, the free action reload does not, by itself, allow you to both TWF and get full iteratives while doing so).
So yes, both versions are a free action to use the lever.