As an aside, I do a great deal of 2-56 tapping, albeit usually in soft metal. For small taps, 4-40 and smaller, I normally use a "pin vise" instead of a tap wrench. The pin vise has several advantages, the first is that it can be chucked in the drill press vise to start true and then reverted to hand use. Then there is the pin vise chuck that doesn't tighten as much as one would like. It will slip if too much torque is applied. Frustrating but a good safety limit. It can be tightened if you think you can get by with just a little more oommph. Or require rethinking the process if you're that paranoid. And, most importantly, it is driven with no extension. Using just your fingers, the available torque is somewhat limited. I rarely break a 2-56 tap, or M2X.4, but have several on hand for when I do.
During the (rare) times I use a small tap in steel, I usually drill the next size larger hole than recommended. It does weaken the hole some small amount, but in most of my work the screw serves to bind two pieces that are not under extreme tension. But I'm building models, not machines. It can make a difference, I just use a larger screw.
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