Pin vise advise?

[TMo]

On Charlie's advice (the man's a sage...), I decided to "chuck up" one of my pin vises.  The one I picked had a removable back end (it unscrewed from main housing) which allowed me to slide it right in the chuck of my battery powered drill.  After sliding in a bit and tightening it down, it became a stable platform to drill holes for things like grab irons.  I did a full loco's worth of those with the same bit, which was a far cry from using one of my spring-aided pin vises (had problems snapping off or bending the bits with those).  I found that holding the locomotive shell in my left hand and operating the drill while it resting on my desk was a natural and effective way of drilling out all of the holes.

One final note, I typically get each hole started by inserting a straight pin in the area where I want to start the bit...