By itself, small bolt/receiver clearance does not make for a particularly good action.
A true story: Dave Tooley was one of the people who originally pushed the BAT action, esp. for 1,000 yard Benchrest. He has a single-digit serial number 10-inch BAT, as do I. Bruce Thom came to the 3rd 1,0000 yard Nationals even though it is not his sport, shot with us, and got our opinions on the action.
We felt that the bolt to receiver clearance was not enough. With .001 clearance, and that long bolt throw, bolts were binding a bit as we pulled them back. That is frustrating, and frustration is not something you want when competing.
So on the 10-inch BAT, Bruce opened up the clearance a bit on future actions.
The point is that "minimal clearance " is itself a compromise. There are ways of addressing the several problems, elegant ones such as the "Borden Bumps", and, I suppose more prosaic ones, such as the length of the bolt throw and/or the bolt handle, and how you open the bolt, etc.
But as we have just seen on the CF board with various steels and their properties, you can't look at the specifications of something and ignore its intended use. Be careful what you wish for, you might not understand the compromises.
FWIW