Altar wrote:

VerboSaurusRex wrote:

Brett, don't bother with the tuners or pickups until you play the guitar for a while. Even cheap tuners hold tuning - they just might not be very precise when tuning up or may be made out of less expensive metal. But they won't slip.

I have heard plenty of great things about the modern Bullets. Barring a great used score, you won't get a much more serviceable guitar for the money.

He's not new to guitar, just surf, I believe.

This is true....im 25 and have been playing guitar since I was about 14...my sister had an old Samick Strat that I jammed on for a few years until about my 16th birthday and my mom bought me a Gio Ibanez....played that thing until my amp blew 6 months ago. Im not new to guitar but Im new to a lot of technical stuff that I never bothered to learn which bites me in the butt on occasion lol. Never bothered to learn about pickups and all that jazz so trying to pick a good pickup from a pile of bad ones would be about as eventful as me trying to learn fluent russian lol. I never had any other players in my family to help me out so iv only learned what iv picked up here and there over the years.

If you want the ultimate,you gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price.

Brett

Brian wrote:

Altar wrote:

He's not new to guitar, just surf, I believe.

Oops. Well then you don't need a new guitar to play surf. You can play surf on any guitar.

A squier strat gives many advantages to a gio, like single coils and a trem.

IMO.

normj wrote:

Latherman87 wrote: I know some of you are hardcore vintage guitar fans and probably dont care for Squier...or you may who knows. But my main question is...Does anyone have any experience with a Squier Bullet Strat?

Well, I am probably one of those hardcore vintage guitar guys to whom you referred. I have used a couple newer Squier Bullet Strats in projects. I still have one of those somewhere. So I do have some hands on experience with the Bullet.

My objections: Basswood body is very light weight. The quality of the basswood used presents on limitations. The electronics (pots and switch) are not great, but probably as good as on the Afffinty and Standard. The ceramic magnet pickups is tinge too hot, or probably better expressed as too modern voiced for my taste.

As you can see my objections are somewhat minor. Overall I think the Bullet is pretty decent for $120.

I would not waste a lot of money trying to upgrade it. Instead, play it as it is. It is inexpensive, keep it inexpensive. Save the money and if you want a better sound, move up to a used MIM Fender Strat.

12s are probably too heavy for that guitar. The basswood is pretty soft. I tried to put 13s on a newer Bullet body. The hardware is pretty cheap. The claw screw were thinner and shorter than Fender. Who knows what alloy they were made out of. If they saved a couple pennies on cheap screws, that tells you about the rest. With 13s, I had to add a 4th spring. That must spring tension stripped the claw screws out of the soft basswood. I ended up putting in hardwood plugs and using some Fender steel screws. 12s may be an issue on the Bullet.

I did a little work on the frets to make them feel more comfortable to play. I did not think they were well dressed.

I think the quality contron on the Chinese made electronics is virtually non-existant. If you get lousy sound or poor ability to shape the sound, don't change the pickups, swap out the pots.

If you play a mix of music, the stock pickups will probably work for you. If you want it as a surf only guitar, perhaps a very modest pickup swap would be worth while. Before I did any pickup swap, I would definitely swap out the pots for better made ones.

The couple I haved had both had a nice looking finish. Get a color you like. Because I suspect the finish is poly and would be hell to strip and refinish. I like that Fender is using some of its traditional colors with the Bullet. All in all I think the guitar is adwquate and worth the price. I do have doubts as to how durable it would be under hard use. For casual home use, it should be fine. With a good amp it sounds decent.

By the way, if you do research for reviews of the Squier Bullet, keep in mind that back in the 80s Squier made a Bullet that is quite different. That guitar started as a Fullerton made Fender Bullet; it was a student model. Fender shifted production to Japan in 1982 when they started making Squier guitars. The 80s era Squier Bullets MIJ are very good guitars. Even the late 80s MIK Squier Bullets were good. Those have a star in the logo. Easy to tell the difference at a glance.

Talk to you later,
Norm

WOW that was quite the write up! Thank you Norm that was very informative! I guess now one of my main obstacles is the soft wood? I guess its a good thing my wife works at best buy. The D'Adario flatwound .12's I got only cost us $2 lol. There is a wide variety of strings she can get me for cheap so I think I may order some different strings or just keep the stock ones on for a while like its been recommended a few times on this thread.

If you want the ultimate,you gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price.

Brett

The old lipstick tube for surf topic. And why would those be better for surf music than stock Strat pickups, because I never saw anybody use those (except Ferenc for a minute) until Danelectro put them on their cheap guitars. Sure they look cool, but they have nothing to do with surf music. Altar wrote:

http://guitarfetish.com/GFS-Pro-Tube-Lipstick-Fits-Strat-CHROME-_c_188.html
These would be way better for surf, and you could get just two if you get a custom guard from warmoth.

Last edited: Jan 03, 2013 11:03:50

If you say so, but "way better for surf" is quite a claim.

Just to let everyone know....I must have got lucky and bought a "good" Bullet (not that I have any other surf guitars to compare it to but you know what I mean)....anyways..I can get a pretty sweet tone out of it...Iv been slowly working on what I call the "sunrise bombs" where you bar the bottom three strings and slowly dive with the tremolo bar. Anyways doing that several times and sometimes pretty vigorously the Bullet is staying in tune very well! Iv got about 4 hours of playing on it all together and only had to barely tweak the tuning one time as a few of the strings went a tiny bit flat. All in all I am VERY happy with my purchase! I swear I think they sent me a Surf Green one instead of Daphne Blue as the Blue looks like a light blue (no green tone like a seafoam color) online....but once I opened it this suckers seafoam green so that made me twice as happy! Now I dunno if they actually make the Bullets in Seafoam green but thats what this guitar is...im a tattoo artist and i know my colors and regardless of what they might call this color...its seafoam lol. I LOVE this color though regardless of the name! I am currently playing through a Ibanez Tone Blaster 15w amp....sucks because its made for distortion but its going to hold me over until I get my other amp which is a Toss up between the Fender Mustang 20w. I was on a budget so I also bought a multi effects pedal....a Zoom G1N....made my own reverb soaked tone and its pretty sweet!! I am very confident that if I get a more classic fender sounding amp that this tone will be very close to what im looking for as I already love the way it sounds!

If you want the ultimate,you gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price.

Brett

Welcome to the obsession of surf Latherman!
Glad to hear you're enjoying your Bullet, I too bought a Bullet as my first surf guitar many years ago, and still play it.
As for the 20w Mustang amp, I definately recommend it!
Fantastic amp for the $$. It's my main practice amp and it surfs nicely.

Have fun!!

Fin Doctors
Crashmatics

For your purposes the reverb setting should work.

IMO.

I have the fortune of quite a few vintage guitars. Yet i always give a BIG YES to the current Squiers, Epiphones.

If you are finding problems, have a buddy or a guitar shop set it up. it should give you lots of trouble free service for what you are doing with it. Later on, you can upgrade or get something else.. but don't sell them short. Right now is a GREAT time to get decent entry level instruments.

you have also joined one of the best forums.