Pimp my Squier Bullet!

  Here's a nice affordable guitar project I recently finished. A friend of mine bought a brand new Fender Squier Bullet strat guitar finished in "fiesta" red. I've seen many bullet-series Squiers in the past but this one was different!

The New Bullet series:

Serial number:
 The new bullet frd model has a "COS........" serial number while the old bullets had a serial starting with the letters "CS....". So, if you are to purchase a new bullet guitar, look out for the new "COS"  serial number on the back of the headstock. The brand new bullet is a totally different instrument and here's why:
 








Colour:

 This fiesta red guitar was finished in a much more accurate "fiesta/ferrari" red colour while the old "bullet frd" model had a faded/pinky/candy apple type of red finish. The new colour is just awesome.

The Body:

 I opened up the guitar and to my surprise, the body was a bit more heavy (weight wise), made from solid wood and the cavities were painted with conductive paint for shielding! Wow!

The old bullet guitars I owned and played had plywood and even particle-board bodies with no shielding paint... That's a huge step forward for the bullet series.
 The Neck:
 The neck on these new bullet series is just like the old one but it's got better frets. The old frets were too low and there were dead and buzzing notes all over the fretboard. The new bullet frd model had no fret issues with a medium action setup and the frets had no sharp edges like the old ones.

The nut:

I had to file the nut on this one and then lubricate it using a pencil and some nut sauce. I have to admit that the nut was always poorly cut on these guitars. Replacing the stock nut with a graphite one would be the best solution.









 The Hardware:
 The tremolo system on this one is just fine. A few early bullets didn't even have a tremolo system but the later models have a decent trem system. The only thing I always do on these tremolo systems is to place a piece of tape inside every back spring to avoid feedback, tremolo reverb-like noises and click sounds when using the trem bar.

Tuners:

 Moreover, the new tuners/machine-heads are so much better than the old ones! They are adjustable semi-closed ones and they stay in tune. The old bullet tuners were crap... I remember the old tuner studs falling off the neck as soon as I removed the strings... I am so glad Fender put these adjustable and stable tuners on its new bullet series guitars.

Electronics:

The electronics and pickups are just the same old cheap "bullet" ones. So here's were I step in. I rewired the three pickups and pots to get even more tones out of the classic 5-way switch. The new controls are: "master volume", "master tone"(useful for the bridge trebly pickup), "mid pickup blend".
 The third pot is marked as "mid pickup blend". When turned up to 10, it sets the middle pickup in series with the neck or bridge pickup (depending were the 5 way selector is pointing at) thus creating a humbucker series sound that sounds pretty much like a set of classic PAF humbuckers. When the blend pot is turned down to zero, the strat sounds stock(singlecoil and parallel tones). Turning the blend pot from 0 to 10, creates many tones, from series to parallel and everything in between.

 Here's the wiring schematic that could give your at least 2 extra powerful tones: (open in new tab)

Verdict:

The new bullet series Squiers became decent guitars. They need a bit of attention and setup but the overall build quality is so much better. Priced at about 99$, these new "bullets" are value for money guitars and they can be modified or customised for little money (or even for free, like I did!).  Check'em out!

 Cheers,
Thanos