I had one that was cut off flush...
It was a reblued all original Rem Rand that someone tried to pretty up. I removed the MS housing and soaked the cross pin and the lanyard stub ends with Kroil for a couple days. The cross pin drifted out easily, but had some rust on it. I was able to coax the stub remnants out with a small drift, engaging the concave relief for the cross pin through the cross pin tunnel.When enough of the stub was exposed, I was able the remove it with vise grips. It took a while, but they came out with no damage to the MS housing.
I replaced it with an original loop I got from Bill Ricca. Used the original cross pin.
Karl