I find needle nose pliers great for grab irons and similar. I find and mark the point where the jaws are equal in width to the inside dimension between the bends, grab a piece of the brass rod/wire, and bend down on both sides of jaws. Then I cut the ends to length.
Sometimes I have cut a piece of hardwood to the right width, hold rod/wire over piece and bend down on each side. If you are doing a bunch that needs to be exactly same size, this prevents worrying about getting the piece in the exact point on jaws of needle nose.
For larger grab irons I try to get unhardened brass rod, or else use copper wired. This makes bending the larger sizes easier.