Reloading a weapon obviously generally involves both hands, but it doesn't obviously involve both hands starting on the weapon.
Is it acceptable for a 2-handed weapon that is held in one, to take a reload action with it, and as part of that reload action, to end your formerly free hand as holding the two-handed weapon?
This seems reasonable, but isn't specifically called out as far as I can tell. In a way it almost seems necessary, since reloading in theory requires a free hand, using a 2-handed weapon, it makes sense it would start by 'dropping' a hand (always free) to make it a free hand for reloading purposes, and then ending with a free adding hand back to the weapon after reload.
It doesn't just affect firearms, but would be relevant for crossbows and such too.
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"Switching your grip to free a hand and then to place your hands in the grip necessary to wield the weapon are both included in the actions you spend to reload a weapon." (last section of the reload rules here)
The CRB has got you covered ^^
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I ran into this same issue during the playtest. I was wielding a musket and had Battle Medicine. GMs seemed split on whether I could let one hand go of the musket, Battle Medicine, Reload, Strike. Or if I needed to take an additional action to Grip the weapon with two hands again. This might ultimately be a question for the rules forum, but I'm curious if anyone else encountered this during the playtest.
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Thanks Karmagator, I think that it makes sense that with it saying those actions are included with the action, and is easy to imagine if one isn't necessary, because you already had the hand free, it wouldn't prevent you from reloading. I'm happy to see that, and I think that actually gives some 2-handed reload weapons a bit more options I hadn't considered before as viable action patterns.
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The reason confusion comes in is that there are definitely instances in 2E where you can't separate out the subordinate actions of an ability to only perform some of them. I certainly agree that I would read that sentence the same way, but it was not my experience that that was a consistent reading of it.
Essentially, as soon some GMs feel that you are trying to get away with something, it becomes table variation.