Hello cmays, the annular cutters are designed specifically to be used in dedicated systems and specially adapted systems for the purpose of drilling holes. As you yourself know and as has been pointed out by everyone who has commented here, these cutters need a rigid alignment system to work properly. If your mag drill has the provision to chuck morse taper bits ("some" of the Milwaukee mag drills with the 3/4" drill motor do), then there is an adapter specifically designed to use annular cutters that will fit into this particular mag drill. Placing this adapter in the morse taper will allow it to be positioned close enough to the drill motor to avoid excessive chatter and movement, it will also allow for the use of the pilot to correctly position the bit on the center punch mark for the hole position and will allow the slug ejection system to work properly. There are a number of the foreign built mag drills that are coming on the market that have the ability to use annular cutters, morse taper bits, and since they can use the morse taper, a jacobs chuck mounted on the morse taper can be used as well.
The following is definitely not a suggestion that everyone should consider doing as this goes against the purpose and intention of the manufacturers of annular cutters. I "have" used an annular cutter in a hand drill, now I'll qualify my statement. If you take a piece of cold-rolled material that is roughly 1" thick and drill a hole through it with the annular cutter that you plan on using in the hand drill, you can use this piece of material as a guide bushing to hold the cutter on position and keep it from walking while you are drilling the hole with a hand drill. I cannot stress enough how much care you need to take to not allow the bit to hang up, let it cut on it's own and don't apply excessive amounts of pressure. Generally, flat plate will not be a problem to drill through, however if you are drilling through the flanges of either a piece of channel iron or S-beam the taper of these shapes can cause some real problems. I used a milling machine to chuck the annular cutter and drill the guide hole through the 1" material. You either hold this guide piece in position by using some very stout clamps or by tack welding it to the piece that you need to put the hole in. You also need to be sure that the drill you are using is of a low rpm variety and that you use plenty of cutting or drilling fluid. Drilling holes this way will also require removal of the bit in many cases after the hole has been drilled so that you can use the appropriately sized punch to carefully knock out the slug. Once again, this can be done, but I wouldn't suggest it unless there is some very specific reason that you can't use a conventional mag drill designed specifically for these types of bits. My $.02. Best regards, aevald