Bed Turrets–accuracy And Side Play?

[SmokeWalker]

I have a new Hardinge bed turret for my new (!) Elgin lathe and there's a tiny amount of side play at the turret (not the slide portion). The only way I've been able to remove the side play is by tightening the nut holding the turret on, but doing that makes it difficult to index.

Questions:
Do bed turrets of this type conventionally have side play?
How accurate are turrets like this when using knee tools? In my preliminary tests, I'm only able to get within +/- .005 in terms of repeatability. I'd like to do better than that. Any suggestions?