Indian laurel board limited edition Bullet tele...any good?

Buying WITH trying is a gamble too ! Theres just no way to know what a guitar is capable of or not if you like me intend to mod it. I NEVER buy guitars thinking that if i don't like it i'm done. I buy with the intention of modding it till i get MY sound. Almost no guitars i have ever owned make me happy stock. I wanted to see my MIM 69 thinline for days after i got it. Once i figured out what i needed to change and tried a number of things it became one of my fav in not THE fav teles i have owned. Trying it fiorst did nothing to tell me any of that. So how can i know whether they will know by trying them? I can't go into GC and ask them to let me bring my tools and parts and sit in the store soldering different pickups in it ! Seriously, trying does absolutely nothing for me. What DOES is evaluating a guitar's potential by the woods, hardware, etc using what i know about how these things affect the sound. With a guitar like the bullet i couldn't really do that because of certain unknowns with it, (indian laurel for example) so i had to take a chance which i did because it ticked a lot of boxes that i couldn't tick w/o going to a 2k fender. And at $179 and GC's return policy there wasn't a lot to lose. If it were a lot more like a vintera at about 5 times the cost or a AO at 10 times, then i would pass and in fact already have.

 

Stock i didn't like the tone at all. So much so that i literally would have headed back to GC and returned it after less than 5 minutes had i not bought it with the intention of modding the H out of it. It sounded kinda odd to me and nothing like any tele i have owned including several classic vibes. It sounded sterile and modern in a bad way. But i guess it depends on what you look for personally. Me, i find myself unable to enjoy playing modern sounding guitars at all, and thats what the stock bullet sounds like to my ear. However, i finally got it where i want it today and a few other changes will be needed but now i'm liking it. Still sounds a tad modern to me but nothing like before, and i think a set of brass saddles will get me the rest of the way. I probably would have returned had i not found a pickup that got me what i wanted out of it If i didn't love the neck so much. Might be my all time favorite neck ! Probably gonna gloss it tho, and i really don't like satin finishes at all. Also need to change the neck pickup, and i am not exaggerating when i say it is THE worse tele neck pickup i have ever heard. Even with a treble bleed i put in the guitar that pickup sounds so muddy when i roll of the volume even a bit that is sounds like the tone pot is on about 3. And the tone pot is disconnected. Seriously, i'm not exaggerating in the least. I really wonder if it's defective but understanding pickup construction quite well i cannot envision a scenario where a flaw could cause that.

 

The worse sound from the neck is a overdriven tone and rolling the volume down as i mentioned before. It gets so muddy it's crazy. With the guitar on 10 it's usable tho still the worse i have played. Turned down i find it literally unusable. Like i said, sounds like a tone control on 3 or 4. Might even be too muddy for jazz ! Maybe with the amp clean that wouldn't be the case but i get my clean tones from a overdriven amp and rolling the guitar volume down. (with a 250pf treble bleed)

 

My tuners are lousy. Gonna see about getting some conversion bushings and use one of the many vintage style fender sets i have in the parts drawer.