BoMar rib sights

A klutzy buddy gave me his nicely modded 1911 to straighten a bent rear sight. Turns out the sight was actually okay, using a square on both sides of the slide.
The real problem was his vision, and seeing the sights. He had goobered white paint over the front and rear.
Underneath were dead night sights.
I've been known to drill sights for larger white dots, and would have done it in this case, but it wasn't clear how to remove the front sight from the BoMar rib so I could jig it up and drill it. The dead night sights were another concern; I feared the drill might jump. I wasn't about to try without a 90* angle.
How does that front sight come out? It appears to simply be drifted in from the front, but a couple whacks with a brass drift moved nothing.
BTW, the gun has a full length guide rod, and hadn't been taken down in this century. There was dirt in places JMB didn't even know about....;)
Help?
Thnx,
Moon