I recently put a side sling swivel on my upper and wanted to remove the front sling swivel. How do I remove the front swivel rivot without marking up my upper. Thanks. Scott

I took off an old beat up sling swivel, just the other day, to replace it with a new one. Simple. Take a 3/32" drill bit and drill out the center of the rivet on the side with the hole in the head. You don't need to go very deep, maybe 1/8" or less, then take a 1/16" punch and give the rivet a good tap from this same side. Pops right out. A small ball-end cutter in a Dremel tool would work also.

I put the new swivel on with a rolled pin.

HTH . . . . Doug

There is no need to drill the swivel rivet first, just tap it out with the appropriate  pin punch.

Yeah, if you've got a big enough hammer and the "appropriate pin punch" (whatever that is), you probably could just "tap" the rivet out and be done with it. Of course you would also run the risk of breaking off one or both of the sling swivel "ears" if you failed to provide adequate support for them during the "tapping-out" process.

Center drilling the peened end of the rivet took me all of about thirty seconds. Time well invested, IMHO.

HTH . . . . . Doug

Been there-done that.Please support the rivet
ears the best you can--popsicle sticks stacked,
Nylon backer-block,whatever--but use something!
You can be faced with making-up new cuss words
when it breaks.

Thanks for the input. Scott