Bent up stuff

Read a great article describing coil binding on springs from Lunati. Seems to describe what happened to me. Don't know if this helps but I was examining the springs and the ones that appeared to be in a bind were not compressed evenly. In other words, the spring gap was tight in front and sides and rear were open as if the spring were kind of hunched over. I was pointing this out to machinist and he said he gauges the gaps on sides, not where it is compressed at it's tightest point. What is the right way?