Search by Kind One of the most useful ways to narrow down a search is by using the kind: keyword. This allows you to restrict your list of results to a certain file format. For instance, if you type time machine kind:pdf, Spotlight will pull up only PDF files containing the words "time" and "machine". You can also limit your search to e-mail messages, music files, System Preferences, applications, and more.
While the original Spotlight recognized only a limited number of file types, the Leopard version can look for files created by specific applications, as well as certain file formats. Searching for kind:mp3 or kind:tiff will find files in one of those formats, and searching for kind:pages or kind:powerpoint will show only documents created in one of those programs. For a list of useful keywords, see “My Kind of Keyword.” But remember, for the keywords to work, you must have the appropriate categories enabled in Spotlight’s preferences.
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Same thing bothering me. As far as I can tell, there is no 'native' Finder solution.
However, as a (belated) suggestion to OP, or anyone else with the same problem, here's how I solved it for myself -- sort of a 'hack', but better than Finder default behavior:
Use some keyboard customization software (I'm using Karabiner), and define a (user activated) shortcut that triggers two other keyboard shortcuts that are executed automatically, and in sequence. The shortcuts that do the trick are: (1) Reveal in Finder, (2) Merge all windows.
Details: "Reveal in Finder" is already bound to a shortcut natively (cmd-R), but "Merge all windows" is not afaik. Since adding menu items in Karabiner is a bit tricky, probably the easiest way is to assign a shortcut to "Merge..." in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App shortcuts. I picked cmd-shift-M. You can then make use of this (OSX) shortcut in the definition of a Karabiner shortcut.
In Karabiner, I then defined a custom shortcut (cmd-R), triggering cmd-R and cmd-shift-M.
The effect is pretty close to what I wanted to see in the first place: in a Finder search tab/window, I select an item, press cmd-R, which reveals the item in a new window, which is immediately merged into the existing window as a new tab.
Focus remains on main window, the new tab goes to the end of the tab bar, and I can continue revealing other items immediately without having to cycle tabs.
The one thing that still bothers me: the "merge windows" animation is slow-ish, and I can't find a way to speed it up (or disable it).
Like I said, not perfect perhaps, but it's reasonably close to what I had in mind.
Best Answer
I'm running 10.12.6, too, and it works the same way for me.
If I follow the exact same steps as you described, I get the same results that you get. I'm assuming this is normal behavior.