Before I submit a trouble ticket to Support, I wanted to check to see if anyone else is experiencing this:
If I fire 12 Sidekick rounds which forces it into a reload, my Spartan drops the weapon down completely out of sight. It adds a couple extra tenths of a second to the reload animation.
This only seems to happen if I am able to upgrade to the next level (but chose not to). If I am still at Level 1 with 0 points, the empty clip reload animation is normal.