You can make a weapon's reloading animation shorter by quickly selecting an item (grenade, remote mine, first aid spray), and then switching back to your weapon. Alternately, press [Fire] (without aiming) to perform a gun-butt with the weapon and complete the magazine reload; however, this make your character do the gun-butt animation. This, and other actions (taking cover, diving, etc.), may be faster or slower than weapon switching, but will depend on the situation you are in. These methods allow you to cut down the animation delay periods for certain weapons (notably the grenade launcher), letting you shoot the weapon a few moments earlier. However, these tricks do not apply to weapons with manual actions, such as the six-shot sniper rifle, regular shotgun, Piers' Anti-Material Rifle.