Are offset shear pins able to bear more load?

[Superburban]

I agree, stick with the straight shear. The offset is likely a tad stronger, but much harder to calculate what the shear load would be, kinda defeating the point of having a shear pin. You want more strength, go with a higher shear strength metal.

Also, if you do a setup with shear pins, make several extra pins. Like fuses, if you have extras on hand, you will be less likey to jury rig something else to get you going again.

 

[MontanaLon]

I like to look at things like this from a different perspective. Shear pins have been in use for probably a few hundred year, so why hasn't this been looked at before? Of course the answer most times this type of question is that it has and for one reason or another was found to be lacking in some way.

If you need a larger amount of torque the obvious answer is to use a bigger pin. Shear pins are cheap and the expense of drilling hole for a pin that is offset or creating a new part with the ability to be drilled without a complex setup and it is just more economical to go with a larger pin. The amount of force needed to shear at another point on the shaft would be smaller than the amount of force increase gained by going to the next size shear pin.