Thanks for the detailed reply! I hadn't realized I could use the grip to hold the default gun in place. I'll definitely be using that. The level failing to load has only happened once so far, but if it happens again where are the logs being stored so I can grab them?
I think these are the logs you're looking for
https://gist.github.com/smiller171/00e0991f658effa8ecea904aefe8ecd7