Take your 1.5 MOA rifle and add 2 inches, for example, and your possible point of impact (with a perfect shot taken) extends to about a possible 5" radius even as near as 100 yards.
I'm not getting this. A 1.5MOA rifle shoots a 1.5" group. That 1.5" distance between the shots farthest apart. This ALSO means when sighted properly, all shots will be approx. 3/4" (or less) from the point of aim.
Ok, add 2 inches. Now its a 3.5" group, with a radius of 1.75". NOT 5".
A 5" radius means a circle 10" in diameter.
Where (and when) I grew up temp during deer season ran from below freezing to well below zero. Amazing how warm a calm sunny 25dgree day can feel when you're used to wind and 15 or more degrees less...
Anyway, one of the lessons some folks learned was that if you're going to hunt "in the freezer", store your rifle in the freezer. Same goes the opposite way, in the heat. There's more than a bit of difference between Kentucky woods and 7,000 feet up the side of a rock in the Cascades. tec.
Point is your tools become "acclimated" to the temp/humidity they're in, and when that changes, so do they, a little bit. One deer camp I knew actually had a cabin, with wood stove, rather than a tent...luxury!! but we were cruel, we made the rifles stay outside.
Free floated barrel? sure, why not? HAD to do it to one of my rifles. Moved from a humid place to a dry one, and noticed after a few months, that the wood stock had warped, and was now pressing on one side of the barrel.
It was my fault, though, I had not properly sealed the stock when I refinished it a couple years previously. Didn't matter where I was, but did after I moved to a much different climate.
Free floating (with a properly bedded action) isn't a cure everything thing, but it is a cure some things, and keep others from being a thing, thing.