Vibration, Harmonics, amplitude, fequency, wiggles, buzz, and rattles.
The terms range from clinical higher education to trailer park vernacular.
Most (and by no means do I wish to insult anyone) don't even know what they mean. -Myself included in many instances as I am a lowly H/S graduate.
I think there's something to remember/consider here.
Find a gunsmith that started in this trade building rimfire guns for the BR/International 3P crowd and listen to his/her observations/experience. A lot can be learned. Rimfire 22's and modern high performance CF guns only have one thing in common; They both send bullets out the barrel.
Beyond that they differ in many ways.
A RF travels roughly 1/3rd the speed of anything "cool" in CF. That means the bullet is loitering around in the barrel 3X longer than if it were shot from a different cartridge case. That's 3X longer for dumb chit to start screwing with it. "Dumb chit" is defined in line one of this post.
This is why the sicko's that shoot RF buy ammunition by the pallet once they find a lot that works. It's a great deal of work/expense to get one hammering to exceptional levels. If your ever in COS take a swing by the OTC and ask to see the ammo room. Every lot of Eley Tennex in the world exists in that room. That's what it takes to produce a gold medal gun.
The point here is a guy at the reloading bench has the divine intervention to resolve most of these issue. Seating depth/powder charger/powder selection will by and large tune out the dreaded "engineering terms/trailer park vernacular" that so many fret over.
If your shooting a factory gun w/factory ammo, you'll likely have to buy a few different brands to find what the gun likes.
If your hand loading, whip up a buffet of loads and test.
If your shooting a full effort custom, your gun should be less sensitive to ammunition but it'll still respond favorably to load work.
SD's on a chrony become a valuable tool with this. So does watching your elevation at longer distances.
If vibration is truly the devil, take an old junk M700 and cut an O ring groove at the back end inside the rear bridge. Go buy a high durometer "peter ring" and slip it over the bolt head. Size it to a slip fit and go shoot the gun. Does it get better? Now remove it and shoot again. Does it get worse?
Now play with the load with the rubber and see if history repeats itself... (that really sounds horrible after reading it twice)
Woo Hoo! More stuff to try!
BTW: We're selling "Trojan bolt rings" installed for $99.95 (at the dirty book store next to the Chinese food buffet!)
C.