Vintage Drum Tuning anomaly

I refinished another 60's 3 ply floor tom today, put heads back on and tuned it up. I noticed and marvelled how, after the tension rods are screwed in finger tight, that the 3 ply floor toms tune up with only 1/4 to 1/2 turn of the tension rods with a drum lug key. They go through a large tuning range with a quarter to half turn. Given the number of threads on a tension rod, that seems like very few turns, but thats the way it is.



Does anybody else who plays 3 ply kind of drums with low bearing edge have the same thing? Is it the bearing edge? Or modern drums simply have more threads on tension rods?

Vintage Drum Tuning anomaly