[olmountain]

Thanks, Jim. But I may have myself in a worse pickle now.

Neither knife nor needle-nosed pliers would move the pin out, so I thought I'd try to free it up by pushing it in a bit. Simply pressing on a punch wouldn't budge it, so I tapped on the punch lightly with a plastic hammer. The pin not only freed up --- it slipped almost completely inside the frame and is stuck there. Just a tiny bit of the nose of the pin is sticking out into the crane slot. (More was available a few minutes ago, but trying to grip that tapered pin with thin needle-nosed pliers was a mistake. It just recessed farther into the frame, to its present location.)

I've dripped some Hoppe's oil onto the pin's nose, hoping the compressed spring will eventually push it out. That's about the extent of my ideas!

EDIT: Looking over other posts in the Revolver Forum and exploring further in "The Firing Line," it seems as if this discussion better fits in the "Smithy" forum. I started a thread there and will abandon this one.