If you have access to early copies of MEW Ian, you will find an article of mine on using arbor presses to punch holes. They do need modifying to take out the play between ram and main body to do this though.
Briefly, the 0.5ton press was able to punch a 4mm hole, which according to calculations required about 0.5 ton pressure, but it was very heavy going.
With a longer handle fitted I was able to punch a 6mm hole (0.75 ton) with relative ease, and testing the gap in the main casting with a DTI there was no detectable sign of it opening up. The material being punched was sheet steel 1mm thick .
The article was in issue 33 page 35. Unfortunately, this is one that I have not added to my website. However, I could add a rough and ready version onto a temporary site I use should this help. I will not though be available until mid July to add any comments or to place the article on the web.
Readers may be interested, and some surprised, to learn that punches and dies will work if made using just mild steel. I have punched 10 holes in 2mm thick steel and then over a hundred in 1mm thick steel with still a little life left in both the punch and the die, It would then only be a case of returning them to the lathe and refacing them. This was of course was using a fly press not an arbor press
Harold