I'm looking at a 15" Variable speed Clausing floor model standing drill press with #2 Morse taper- it seems pretty unabused and I am assured it did come from a school...

We get .0015 TIR at the bottom of the spindle stroke. My notes show that anything over .001 is going to be too much for accurate work.

Can the press be fine tuned???

I think I'm going to make an offer anyway- what do you guys think- buy it?, pass on it, make a low offer and hope he goes for it?, grab it with both hands and run?

(As an aside, good machinery rarely pops up around here as conveniently as this one...)

I seldom, if ever, use the full stroke length of my drill press when working on guns, and I keep the table/work up as close to the quill as possible.

A drill press isn't a milling machine so if the total runout is only .0015 I wouldn't be too worried. A lot of chuck arbors have more tunout than this. Replacement bearings are not too expensive (until you get into the ultraprecision ones). I think a more important test is to measure play in the spindle when you put some side pressure on the chuck. The kind of slop you see here isn't usually easy to fix. I have been looking for some time and from what I can tell good used big industrial quality drill presses are quite expensive and hard to find.
C.G.B.

runout of .0015 on a drill press is an unusually good drill press. It's still not a mill however and runout of .0001 will not make it so either.