did a bit of research elsewhere. You can buy spare bits for the sort of machine you list - eBay has them from time to time. I would anticipate that for your needs one of these bits in a pillar drill might work, but I have no idea of the necessary speed or other precautions - you're on your own!
eBay also has the complete 'paper drills' for auction as well from time to time. If there's a 'local pickup only' one going near you you might get it for a reasonable price.
You can also get manual version of this sort of thing. They are sold (again, I know of them via eBay) as 'punches' for card and leather. The ones I have seen sell for more than your cost though. I actually bought something like this on eBay for a fiver or so which works very well. It's made by 'Zenith' (Italian though, I think) and was designed for salesmen etc., similar to your purpose. This was a one-off buy though, it's an old unit.
Colin Bignell of this parish kindly send me a length of stainless steel hollow tubing of the appropriate outside diameter. The idea was to sharpen it on the inside, and again mount it again in a pillar drill. I never got around to this, due my purchases above and below ... I also think, by comparison with what I ended up with, that the wall thickness would have been too large.
At the same time as all of this (it was a fortuitous fortnight!) I came across an 'Extra Heavy Duty' hole punch - =A34 in a charity shop ;-). You might look for these again on eBay. 'Velos Perforex' is the style, but make sure it's an extra heavy duty one. This has two hollow punches and a 'throat' of half an inch or so, & is built to match. They are forty quid or so if you can find them new.
Have a look for my previous thread on this forum - search for 'paper drill' for a bit more info.
IMHE it needs to be used in a drill press, and a rigid one at that - certainly not a hand-held drill. As it's a tube, not a central point, there's almost no centring action and it "walks" everywhere.
You can easily make your own from a pice of steel tube (car brake pipe), sharpened on the inside with a countersink bit. Case-harden it, or else turn it from a hardenable steel, if you need good wear out of it.
Here you go - a penny under 8-)
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is actually a good source of drill bits and a wooden / plastic handle wouldn't take long to make.
I think clamping the document between two wooden batterns and using a plain ordinary HSS drill would be better. Obviously easier and safer with a drill press.
Thanks for the link Andy - this 'pattern drill' is very similar to the Zenit tool I mentioned above - in fact I'd hazard that the Zenit is a 'consumer' modification. The bits look identical. So I can vouch for the practicality. You could fairly quickly cut a couple of holes in a thick magazine - say 6-7mm - with this.
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