Time for a new 4-Jaw chuck - perhaps?

[Hopefuldave]

I stick a 3-jaw in the 4-jaw too... But not a sloppy 4-jaw! It definitely sounds like time for a new one, and the Fuerda 4-jaws are pretty good for the money, all I've seen have been decently made, accurately square and smooth in operation - if you have a D1 spindle nose on your lathe consider getting one with a D1 fitting, of course! I'm not sure what other spindle fittings they do, but there are D1-4 and D1-6 in their catalogues (I wish they did D1-5 to fit my.lathe though, I'd have to use one of my remaining backplates...)

Dave H. (the other one)