Long term strat player here.
I’ve been doing my setups for a long time and I think I finally figured out why some strats feel stiff and others not so much, considering all things like string gauge, scale length, tuning, action and neck bow.
I recently started to deck the bridge as I realised the tone was robust to a floating bridge. And I generally didn’t pay much attention to the number of springs or claw position as long as I got the amount of float or in this case have the bridge decked to the body with full contact.
Here’s what I found, over tightening the claw with 5 springs made the strings feel a lot stiffer. Releasing the claw lowered string tension.
I mean the two body mounting claw screws, that set the claw distance, from the body where it’s mounted.
So now I set it just where I don’t have the low E string go flat when I bend the G string, no more tighter than that, and I’ve then got the overall tension where I want/tolerate it.
I found the physics counter intuitive but it’s definitely a repeatable experiment over my three strats. So now I have a standardised real world test to set them close.
Speculative: I’m beginning to theorise on this a bit further, me currently playing flat sawn necks with 13-58 gauge strings is benefiting from the slightly more pliable flat sawn, kind of explains why quarter saw necks can be stiff on the strings, but with so many variables I may be reaching on the neck cut thing.
edit: I read somewhere SRV had one if his’s rodies dad make him billet steel carved tremolo arms to deal with the tension for a full show, rumour has it he’d break the trem arms, decking the bridge tight definitely changes the vibe on the trem, flex is introduced with stock arms.