I tried that when I first met these things. The flat bar needs a tiny recess to stop the outer edge of the nutsert from expanding first. All you get is a mangled insert without this groove. Its got to be very accurate. I suppose you could cut the groove with a specially ground drill bit but your bar needs to be harder than stainless to hold the edge of the insert from spreading! The force needs to cause the middle of the insert to expand first.

