Howdy!
Let me start with the metric stuff first - while it's true that all the nuts and bolts were metric on the Tiger and all other German gear, for that matter, it doesn't matter much for the modeller, IMO. Let's take the popular "17" nut for example. It's commonly used with M10 thread. When you measure it, it has 17mm between the flat sides. Now divide it by 16 and you get 1,0625mm. So OK, 1mm hex will be close but not 100% (I think we can live with the 0,06 mm difference). I'm not sure, but I think you can find something just as close if you recalculate from the inches (1 inch = 25,4mm). Popular nut sizes in metric machines are 6, 8 ,10, 13, 15, 17, 22, 24, 32.
But you don't necessarily have to punch them - I had good results with slicing styrene hex rod, they are available in many different sizes. You can even drill a hole in the middle and put a little piece of strethed sprue in, to simulate the bolt.
Hope it helps, good luck with your project
Paweł