Thanks for the reply and links.
I did get my salt level tested yesterday (after posting) and pool store says I have 3500ppm salt. The test kit was giving me 4000 as I noted. I'll try wiping the tips as Ben suggests.

Would it be possible to dilute the reagent so it would take twice as much pool water, distilled water, and reagent to do the same test. This way the variance in drop size would not have as much effect on the results. In other words, you would count each drop (used to go from yellow to red) as 100 ppm salt instead of 200.