How much deflection to expect...

[Jonathan]

If you can't be bothered with the maths - I just checked our kitchen scales (the flat digital type) and they go up to 5kg (50N). So if you have something similar handy use them to push against the collet until they read 5kg. If the DTI reads less than 0.05mm you are in business (>1000N/mm).

Good idea - I used 20kg hanging scales as they're exceptionally cheap on eBay and have a hook on the end which makes is easy to grab a bar/tool in the spindle to pull on. Do remember that, especially for a fixed gantry machine, we need to consider the stiffness of the bed.

You can think of the stiffness readings as spring constants, which can be combined as you would for springs. So in this situation you would have the same force applied to the spindle (i.e. Z-axis) and bed (i.e. X and Y axes), which is like having two springs in series - so to find the overall spring constant (i.e. stiffness), measure them both and use the following formula:

.

Then if . is greater than 1000N/mm, you're in business. Unfortunately you can't really simplify that, but if one of the stiffness readings is significantly lower than the other (say 10*), then you can just use that as the overall stiffness wont be affected much by the other one.

Anyway, one thing I will say at this stage is that the gantries move fairly smoothly without much effort when turning the screws by hand

If it doesn't, you're doing something wrong.

although pushing the gantries around (back-feeding the screw) takes a fair bit of effort

That's normal.

with a bit of binding towards the ends of the screw.

Not good! That implies the bearings on either end of your ballscrew(s) are slightly misaligned, so they're applying significant radial force to the nut when the ballnut is near the ends, but not in the middle as the ballscrew itself will just bend. Try moving the nut to one end of the screw, loosen the bearing mount (so it self aligns), retighten carefully, then do the same at the other end. You can also try leaving the bearing fixed and loosening the ballnut mount.
Do it now.. it's the sort of thing that you'll get away with for a while, but will cause problems soon enough as it prematurely wears the bearings/nut.

I've noticed that the x ball-nut is a bit 'clicky'

I'd look into that sooner rather than later, before it's too late. If you dismantle the ballnut you'll probably find there's a ball in the wrong track, or bits of swarf in it. I've had that problem with new nuts more than once.