If you were really laying into it, it might have been approaching the bottom end of a medium press fit. In my pre-press days I used to use the vice for up to 1 ton, and a shortened small sledge-hammer above that. From that I moved to a huge old O-frame flypress, which was great up to the limits of its frame size (about 15 inches). Then I inherited a serious press and life got easier. The big difference is the press tools you use. You frequently need a lathe to make a decent tool, so the is job easy, controlled, and unlikely to damage anything. These days if I only want a ton, I use the height-adjusting hand-wheel, up to 5 tons I don't even put the long handle into the pump lever, and by the time I get to 30 tons my feet are just about off the floor. From your description I suspect your sleeve took something slightly over 5 tons.
When I was a kid I needed to take the kingpins out of a 30 year old car. I tried with a 3 pound hammer and a purpose-made tool to hit. I achieved nothing, and asked my father to take it to his factory and use the press. (I figured that if necessary, he'd then have had a oxy torch ready to hand anyway.) He brought it back and told me what a whimp I was not to have removed them by hand. I asked him how much force the press had applied, and he said, "Oh, hardly anything, it was just on 15 tons". Nowadays, I'm spoiled like he was.
