this was helpful for getting the row positioned to the right place without dragging:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4928002/jquery-sortable-set-item-to-an-index-programmatically
Still looking if it’s possible to have acf update row numbers and the db.
I can’t find where these type of function are located:
in repeater input.js – ‘acf/sortable_stop_repeater’ and in repeater.php ‘acf/update_field/type=’