craftsman drill press run out

The way these chucks are mounted with a taper lends themselves by default to a certain amount of runout, especially with bad machining to begin with as so many seem prone to. Older ones are probably better, but they have other issues brought on by age and abuse. Sometimes it's possible spin the chuck in the spindle, which will scar the internal surface. You could spend some money (After verifying the spindle integrity) and get a nice Jacobs chuck. Same basic thing but generally a higher quality part. Any corrosion, gunk, ridges, dust in the spindle taper will through it off.