Many years ago I bought a used HP 34401A meter. From the serial number I estimate it was manufactured in February 1996. Had it calibrated three times by Keysight (well, HP, Agilent, and Keysight) and this is a summary of the results. The first time I sent it in was March 2005, and it was out of calibration (that may have been the result of a sloppy calibration lab making adjustments between the time it was manufactured and the time I bought it).
Each time Keysight did the calibration they took “before” and “after calibration” data and they made adjustments to make it close to perfect. So in March 2005 they adjusted to be exactly right. The next time it was sent in was four years later (April 2009). There is a column showing the ppm change over four years and the calculated “Drift per year”. It was again adjusted to be exactly right. Then eight years later (May 2017) it was sent in again and you can see the drift for the 100V and 1000V ranges has gone down substantially. The 10V and 1V range show almost no drift. The 100mV range shows some drift but still very little.
The way the meter has held its precision to me is astonishing! It says a lot for the LM399 Reference. I haven’t analyzed the other functions, but based on these numbers it would be a total waste of time and money to send it in every year for calibration. Part of the reason for it’s low drift may be due to the stable 23° C (+/- 1° C) environment, but I think it is because the manufacturer is ultra-conservative in specifications.