I've removed quite a few distributors from Chevy 235's and GMC inlines.The stock gear pin appears to be a soft steel pin,peened over.Most pins where a little loose too.I've also messed around with Hei's from Chevy 250's and home modified Chevy 2.8 V6 Hei's for use in the old 6's.The gear pins were the roll pin style,some were double roll pins,one inside the other,some where a single roll pin,some where solid soft steel pins like the older 6's.
Anyways,on a street engine,there may be some thought to the gear pin shearing if the pump jams to avoid chewing up the cam drive gear.
When I assembled my GMC 302,I made an oil pump test fixture to adjust the oil pump relief valve to the pressure I thought was proper,about 65-70 psi with room temperature 10-40 oil,which worked out to 55-60 psi in the running engine with 20-50 oil.I used a 7 amp industrial Metabo drill on low speed(1200 rpm) to spin the pump.When the pressure got over 60 psi it bogged the drill and I had to really have a firm grip on the drill.I can't say how much torque or HP the oil pump consumes,but V-8 Chevy pump running 60 psi uses about 5 hp from what I'm told.There is probably dynamics of vibration that also affect the drive gear.
