only to discover that 3 of the bottom lugs were about twice the size of the regular lugs. I recently bought my snare from Fork's Drum Closet and its from Spirit of JSU. At Pearl they took the Evans heads off to put stock Pearl heads on so I guess it could happened then. Anyways whenever I try to screw them in they go past the threads and then don't provide any tension. I went to a local music store and they said they would order some for me but I was wondering if there was anything else I could do. Suggestions?

Make sure they're ordering the right tension rods (Pearl T054). If they're like the typical "local drum shop guys", they won't realize that the tension rods on high-tension marching snares are a slightly wider diameter than the rods they'd use on a drum set.

If they give you the skinnier tension rods, they'll go in and they may even get a little bit of a grip, but they won't hold under tension and could strip out the threaded end on your tension post.

One way to make absolutely certain you get the right tension rods: Order them from a shop like Columbus Percussion and have 'em sent right to your doorstep.

If you're referring to the length of the rod, then yes, it's pretty key to get the proper size. A tension rod that's even 1/2 inch too long will "bottom out" and fail to do it's job.

It would be like putting a bass drum rod on a snare. Not gonna work.

If you are wondering if you can cut it short with a hacksaw, don't bother. Get the correct part.

Regarding the above post, Pearl rods do tend to look a bit wider. The thread pattern is the same, but the Pearls are a tad more robust and have a tighter tolerance.

On drumkit drums it's not a big deal, but for high tensions, don't mess around. Get the recommended part.

It's not just Pearl and it's not just that they look wider. With the advent of Kevlar heads, tension rods were shearing under the tension. Pearl, Yamaha, and other companies started using wider tension rods on their marching snare drums. (You'll find 'em on tenors nowadays, too.)

If you look at Yamaha's tension rods, the thicker 6 mm version has a dimple on the top of the square head so you can visually tell a high-tension marching drum tension rod from the typical skinnier rods.

hm, that sounds like something thats happened to me sorta.
we were changing our heads and snare on one of our kit snares only to realize that it was a very very high quality snare from 1983 and was like super heavy duty and that nobody makes the kind of snare that goes on this bad boy anymore. In fact every person we bring it to is baffled and confused and sorta amazed at how super tight and solid of a drum it is.