What year is my Bullet?

[bugo]

The serial number is COS110xxxxx. Is it a late 2011 or a very early 2012? I bought it last week and I think they had just gotten it in.

[StratTuner]

I reckon that it's 2011... otherwise the "COS11" would say "COS12".
Pictures? Are you enjoying this new guitar?

[bugo]

Originally Posted by StratTuner

I reckon that it's 2011... otherwise the "COS11" would say "COS12".
Pictures? Are you enjoying this new guitar?

Fender, and by extension Squier, don't change the serial numbers at the end of the calendar year. The COS11s will continue to be made to a certain date in 2012.

And yes, I'm enjoying it. I put a new set of D'Addario XLs on it and cleaned the fretboard and neck. It plays completely differently from any of my other guitars.

[bugo]

Here are some pics. Just got through playing it. The neck is fast and the guitar sounds twangier than my other Strats.







This is a $119 guitar?

[StratTuner]

yes. $119 is the going rate (retail) for Chinese-made Bullets.
The neck is 42mm wide (wider than the Affinity by a bit), it has ceramic magnet pickups, 11-hole pickguard (more historically accurate than the 8 hole), no skunk stripe but good fret work.

Used, this guitar would sell for $50-$80... I've seen the same guitar on GuitarCenter for that range. this is just my appraisal... your mileage may vary...

[bugo]

I don't think I'll be selling it...it's a good playing guitar with good quality components... I may end up replacing the tuners (I'm not a "modder") because they do feel cheap, but I don't find any problems with the rest of the hardware. The pickups sound good and I use a heavily processed sound using my effects processor so the raw tone isn't quite as important to me as it would be if I plugged straight into the amp.

[softwarejanitor]

Guitar Center and the more competitive local stores those Bullets are $119.99 every day... when they are on sale sometimes you can get them for $109.99 or even $99.99. As said above used they are $50-$80 on CL.

The first thing to do with these is upgrade the awful "trapezoid" tuners with something decent. Provided they fit on your particular headstock the vintage-Kluson style that guitarpartsonline carry are a nice upgrade for $20.

Check the values, some people have reported that some of the newer Bullets come with 250k pots (albeit, still dime sized). If they do then as long as they aren't scratchy (which they shouldn't be on something this new) you can keep them. If the cap is 0.022uf, you can warm and thicken the tone by swapping it out for a quality 0.047uf cap like a Sprague Orange Drop. Then upgrade the pickups with a nice set of Alnicos... the $50 Dragonfire Texas Blues set is nice for the $$$.

[Deadcenter]

^^ My '10 Bullet had 250k dime sized pots

[ricras384]

Nice guitar. I agree that these are a great value for $119.00.

Eric sends

[lilblackduck]

Love mine as well $99.99 on sale! Waiting on parts to finish the upgrades.....