You make a good point about excess oil Colorado Cajun. I suspect those first shots from a clean barrel that hit far away from the sight in point are a result of the barrel being fairly heavily oiled after the last cleaning.

That's a feature I neglected to address when I described my clean barrel hunting practice. If I'm starting with a gun with a bore that has been liberally oiled for storage, I flush the bore with a very wet alcohol patch by pumping the patch up and down the bore several times. Then I dry patch it. Once it's oil free and dry, I do the 'light oil patch/dry patch/load for hunting' thing.