It's whatever, gauging is just a huge pain in the ass. I was at 7/16ths before I took them out, and I just don't feel like going through all of that again. So, punching them would just be easier. As I want to go to at LEAST 2 1/4'', so it'd just be easier to get there, by starting at 0 or 00, and going up quickly without tearing anything.
One of my friends got it done, and he said it wasn't that bad.