You report reading that you should be able to hand tighten the 1" NPT connections 3 to 5 turns before starting to wrench. That agrees with my understanding and (limited) experience. I think you are right to be concerned that your fittings cannot be hand tightened less than 2 turns before meeting resistance.
It would be good to get an answer from one of the experienced and competent plumbers on this site. I give my recent experience below so you can judge my level of competence.
Recently I have had trouble with NPT fittings purchased from a volume homestore. The threads did not engage well. I think you should try to get the best quality fittings to go into the valve and see if those work better than the ones you have that are going in only 2 turns by hand.
On the other hand obviously if the male NPT goes in too far then it may seep. I had that problem recently too. The last two NPT jobs I did both seeped after repeated reassembly.
One case (clothes washer shut-off valves) seeped for a few days, but finally stopped. I had to use pipe dope; when assembled with teflon tape both hot and cold flat out leaked. That was 3 years ago and it has been OK since.
More recently I installed two new outside faucets in our tract house on a slab in a warm climate. There are two outside faucets on 1/2" copper tube emerging vertically from the ground, original faucet just sweated on. Thirty years ago we had a freeze which damaged both faucets and I sweated on a female 1/2" NPT. Recently I replaced the valves with new ball valves which happened to be 3/4" female NPT. I just saw and liked these valves "Garden valve made in Italy". IIRC I made the connection with brass fittings a short 1/2" MIP x 1/2" MIP followed by a 1/2" FIP x 3/4" MIP to go into the valve. So three threaded connections instead of one! I should have found faucets with 1/2" male NPT.
The fittings threaded in nicely by hand and with teflon tape leaked seriously. I took them apart and reassembled with pipe dope and they seeped. Took it apart again and used more pipe dope this time on the female threads too. Seep was reduced and maybe it has stopped by now. It has foam insulation around it and I can't see. It is outside and I don't care if it seeps.