The pins should be perpendicular. Don't bend. Sounds like slop from worn escape wheel bushing.
One of the best test for pivot/bushing wear, is to let down main spring power. Grab main spring wheel make small twist back and forth. What this does is allows you to see pivot/bushing wear in the whole gear trane.
Pivots eat bushing holes eventually causing an oval shape as they eat in the direction to escape pressure. Jiggling the main wheel back and forth makes pivot tips jiggle side to side, showing how much slop exist.
The general rule is 1/3rd of pivot diameter or greater is too much slop.
It's just a guideline.
When gears mesh (gear to pinion), they slide across surfaces. To slide they must not be fully engaged. Otherwise at 100% engagement there is power robbing friction. The ideal engagement (depth) is 90%. You should be able to see daylight between a gear mesh under magnification. Bushing/pivot wear causes tight mesh.
The ideal tool to posses is a depthing tool. But, not often needed by clock repairing. In fact I believe the majority of clock repair people dont own one. Basically you take 2 gears at a time, insert into tool, adjust the depth, roll gears with fingers till it feels right. The tool then has scribes to then transfer that distance to plate. A form of triangulation using sweeping arches.
But in the common everyday repair, examining the existing bushing hole has enough remnant of the original factory hole to accurately locate the original position. Unless it was bushed poorly before.
So it is important, when you repair bushing/pivot location to first establish a precise X marks the spot. I use a razor knife, the kind like a pencil, to make a slight scratch under loupe magnification. I hate using marker or pencil, tape, etc. as my fingers tend to accidentally rub off mark. The razor is thin so the slight scratch is accurate. I free hand the scratch as using straight edge can often offset. If I miss, I rescratch making the correct one more prominent.
Consider the issue of how critical depthing is. The measures are soo small that they almost seem imaginary. Can you see light between 2 gears held in front of bright light? No, well then your mesh is too deep, start over. Btw, too loose is frictional too.
On smaller clocks, like yours, and watches, you have one advantage over the larger clocks, and that is the ratio of pivot and plate thickness. On larger clocks the pivots are fatter and plates thinner (ratio wise).
On larger clocks typically would employ KWM bushing install and fine tuned by broaching after dressing pivots.
Pivots should always be dressed before broaching (You cant make a pivot fatter). That is also why I purchase bushings with smallest hole available.
But, for your escape wheel slop you can do something entirely different.
After doing the X, to the best of your ability.
After dressing the problem escape pivot, filed if needed, burnished.
Mic out the dressed ew pivot and find compatible drill bit or pivot wire.
Then with a round nose punch, with tip approximately size of a bb (bb gun), you can grind any punch to conform. Peen the hole dead center so it slightly closes.
Many many times, you can just poke through with original pivot and the results will be fine, but be careful.
The drill bit, broach, pivot wire are just options to re-open hole. What you are doing is sacrificing a tiny fraction of bushing thickess for more snug fit. The ideal snug fit has about 3 to 5 degrees slop, so if you stand gear in bushing hole, the gear should only lean 5degrees. Using an identical sized pivot wire or plug gauges is a better approach than a tapered broach. But pivot wire is cheaper than a plug guage set.
The big taboo on peening bushings is mostly from larger clock butchering. This is where some would take a punch to surrounding area of the bushing hole and basically kneed the area towards the hole.
