I have a Remington 700 BDL chambered in 30.06. I have been working on getting a load developed for it for over 2 years with absolutely zero luck. I resorted to factory ammunition and many members on this forum talked to me and I acquired a variety of ammunition from them. One question that came up consistently was whether or not the barrel was free floating or not, and I was confident that it was. However I learned today, that although the barrel was free floating prior to firing, it was in fact binding after 3 rounds down the barrel. A little dremel work to clearance the channel and it's shooting 5/8" groups at 100 yards with factory ammunition.

So I learned a long hard lesson, check barrel clearance at operating temperature.

This is why the dollar bill, or the sheet of paper clearance is not enough, as far as I'm concerned. I clear out the barrel channel much more, if we are measuring in thousandths.

I'm glad you finally got 5/8" groups out of it, after two years. That's a long struggle.

Personally I like to use two business cards to prove free float, but that is on a truly rigid stock. Wood stocks flex they may need more relieving especially if you are pushing on the rifle on a bipod.

It’s not as significant if you only fire once.

And that's all you really need most of the time.

I average 2-20 shots when hunting ; how are yall knocking down scores of hogs 1 shot at a time ???

Being a hobbyist reloader with a full work schedule. I get maybe one weekend a month. So I shoot groups of 5-10 at a time, then cool the rifle while changing targets, and record data before moving to next string of shots. So yes 1 shot is not affected by the heat and expansion caused interference but that shortfall is not conducive to what I'm working on. So I'm going to clean up and make plenty of clearance and probably bed the action and recoil lug at this point since it's shooting much better now.

I would caution against 10 shots if you don’t have a varmint profile barrel, thinner barrels can get too hot and lose barrel life.
Probably max out at 5 to be safe.

Most rifles that I have had experience with over my lifetime, even custom precision rifles, usually exhibited some degree of cold bore shift in point of impact. I’m referring to true cold bore (first shot of the day), not waiting 20 or 30 minutes. Therefore, I typically zero my precision hunting rifles in for cold bore accuracy. Not so much with something I expect to make multiple shots with. However for those I will always note where the cold bore impact will be in relation to my reticle.

If you have a consistent cold bore shift on every rifle, that is cold shooter.

What you describe is not the norm.

I mean id imagine at -150 yards a cold shooter isnt out of the norm... if we are talking about a hunting rifle it just needs to be within a 2inch group

You just gotta get em to line up in a row.

As I indicated, it is the norm for the rifles I've had experience with. Aside from a few factory rifles, I have 6 custom built rifles by 4 different Smiths and every one has a cold bore shift to some degree. It may only be .1 or .2 mil shift but I can usually see the cold bore shot off from the group to some degree, albeit a minor degree compared to some factory rifles. I am a precision nerd, so I always want to know where that first shot will impact. Not really interested in "deer rifle accuracy" myself.

Are you shooting suppressed?

On my full customs 3 yes 3 no.

Which is like getting my son to do what I say rather than do what I did at 15. Possible, but not really.

I only shoot a ten round string when I am finalizing a choice between two recipes. Choosing the best of the two as a primary recipe and keeping the second recipe as a backup for component availability issues in the future.
And when shooting for load development I always allow the rifle to cool with action open for 2-3 minutes between shots and only feed a new round once I'm on target and locked into the rifle to reduce heat transfer into the loaded cartridge.