Change Weapon to Side-Weapon ?

I'm not sure this is it, but there is a line in the individual weapons ark.xml files; in the paragraph headed:

<object name="CWeaponProperties">

 that indicates a weapons class i.e secondary or primary.  This section is a fairly long paragraph with a lot of  different weapon parameters in it.  Here's the line for the 44 Mag in my files:

<field name="selCategory" type="Enum">Secondary</field>

All my rifle ark.xmls say Primary instead of Secondary in that line; so I'm thinking it has something to with what you're asking about.  The 3 lines right below that one read:

<field name="HolsterHandle" type="Hash32">CC89916A</field>
<field name="text_RightHandHandle" type="String">righthand_pistols</field>
<field name="RightHandHandle" type="Hash32">A67B1CF6</field>

and might also affect whether a weapon is classed a a primary or secondary--I suspect they refer to character animations when switching weapons as you either draw or holster your secondary to the right side of your character.  

If it were me.................I'd FIRST change Primary to Secondary in the line above to see if that worked in game.  If not you might want to change the next three lines as well, to see if that would make the class switch work. 

BE SURE TO BACK UP THE VANILLA FILE FIRST BEFORE MESSING WITH IT!   Don't be like me and learn the hard way!  

BTW:  If none of that works and your game is ******......................................we never spoke!