It's always been kind of a wonder to me how little hardware there is holding the underside of the ball, but the way I do it I don't think there's any unacceptable strain on those parts. Keeping those parts adjusted as they wear is a whole other topic.
Only two points I can think of to address your concerns.
One is that many cases of the hitch coming off the ball result from it not being latched in properly. The most common cause is that some hitch (trailer-end) designs allow the latch to fall into a position that "looks right" when the pawl that should be under the ball has actually been forced closed OVER the ball (usually if the hitch is too far ahead of the center of the ball when lowered) so that it winds up resting on top, and can not help in holding the hitch to the ball when the trailer rocks to the rear. I had that experience once early on in my towing career
Hence the caution that has led me to test the hitch the way I do. I don't jack it high. I let the jack up enough to make sure it's resting on the ball, then latch it down and secure it with a pin. I then jack it back up enough to take the weight back off the ball (there's a slight pause in the rise of the hitch at that point) and then jack it beyond that point JUST enough to see that it's lifting the truck. Then raise the jack to traveling height.
And I'm not afraid of sticking my finger up inside to make sure the pawl is UNDER the ball. Wiping the grease off my finger is a small price to pay for knowing my hitch will hold.
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Today's Featured Article - A Cautionary Tale - by Ian Minshull. In the early 1950s my father bought an Allis Chalmers B and I used it for all the row crop work with the mangolds and potatoes, rolling and the haymaking on our farm. The farm and the Allis were sold and I have spent a lifetime working on farms throughout the country. I promised myself that one day I would own an Allis. That time event
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