Anyway based on some suggestions there I created a new template but manually chose 30fps for the base frame rate. Usually I just leave FCP choose the FPS based on the first clip added to the project. But when I do it creates a project with 29.98 as the fps instead of 29.97 when you leave it on Auto mode - a slight difference that make a huge differnence, for the worse.
So it looks like manually setting the Frame Rate at 30fps resolves the issue.
Here is a split screen of the difference between the two. The one on the right is noticeably more jittery.