Reload how you're comfortable.
It would be much wiser to advise people to reload in a safe manner.
If your gun is unreliable, and your technique is so sloppy, and you have dismal trigger disipline, then by all means keep the gun pointed down range when reloading.
Gun safety rules are there to prevent injuries or deaths when the UNEXPECTED occurs. Ignoring them at one's convenience with the rationalization that the gun is reliable and the shooter's trigger discipline is good (or any other rationalization) is how accidents are turned into tragedies.
My empty gun isn't going to go off when I slam a mag in.
Poke around a bit and you'll find numerous threads about autopistols that had their slides close unexpectedly when the shooter "slammed a mag in". Poke around a bit more and you can find threads about slamfires and others (like this one) about people accidentally hitting the trigger during a reload. The fact is that guns DO sometimes go off when we don't expect them to. That's precisely why muzzle control is so important.
I'm not the least bit concerned about sending a round allmost straight up into the air.
In my opinion, you should have just said this up front. Clearly, if a shooter doesn't care about the potential of sending a round over the berm where it could cause property damage, legal hassles for the range, injury, death, etc. then this entire debate is a non-issue for him.
I think, at least I HOPE, that the vast majority of shooters are extremely concerned about gun safety and understand the importance of taking precautions to prevent bullets from leaving the range.
Too many people moving about to keep you gun pointed in the direction of your threat. Someone on your team could step in front of you, or a bystander could get up and make a run for it. Not to mention that you don't want your pistol in your outstretched arm for too long. Needs to get tucked in where it's harder to grab from behind.
Yes, in the fluidity of an ongoing gunfight, one might need to vary his muzzle orientation when reloading--from oriented towards the threat in some circumstances, oriented downwards in others, and perhaps oriented upwards in yet other situations. None of that makes it safe to point a gun above the backstop when reloading at a range.
I find it very disturbing that the following fact isn't immediately obvious to some.
The fact that a particular procedure or technique makes tactical sense doesn't mean that shooters should be free to practice it at any range they choose, regardless of the safety limitations imposed by the design and construction of the range in question.
Finally, for what it's worth, there ARE some well-respected trainers who don't recommend you point your gun at the sky while reloading.
Here's Clint Smith demonstrating and discussing how to reload an autopistol. He gives some reasons why he advocates keeping the gun pointed downrange during the reload.
