The first force feed loaders I made were below the gun and pushed the paint up into it. It was actually after seeing my loader prototypes that Tom Kaye came up with the Warp Feed.
It won't help you much having to push down and then around, but it's the best solution if you don't want to modify a loader permanently.
How's it performing?
You can see images and read all 62 claims in my patent here http://www.google.com/patents/US6109252