Squier Bullet S3

It is a squier bullet made in korea (serial number E7xxxxx) probably from 1987.
the headstock is strato tipe with a rosewood fretboard.
it as a tremolo bridge with just two pivots bolt (not the vintage stile six screw type).
pick ups are 3 ceramic single coils with exposed polepieces.
body is smaller compared to a standard straocaster, you also miss one tone pot (in place of the second tone pot it has the input jack).
the body is made of a sort of sandwich: you have a center section made of solid wood with two caps (about 0,5 cm thick) made of plywood; when I discovered it I got a little worried, anyway it sounds good.
the neck plays good (the best piece of the guitar, it is narrow and slim, very easy.
I paid it less than 100 Euros on ebay, a very good bargain considered I just wanted a back up guitar (I mainly play a usa telecaster with a duncan humbucking in the neck position and a di marzio twang king at the bridge). I play it a lot, it sounds cool.
Construction and playability are far superior compared to current squiers, it feels (and plays too) like a real guitar.

It sounds good, very stratocaster, maybe lighter but I am not so shure (I am a tele lover in the end).
At first I wanted to change pick ups but I gave up that idea for now. I just used darker sounding string (I usually use ernie ball on my tele, here I use d'addario) and put a baseplate under the bridge pick up.
recently I converted it to a two pick up guitar (the center single coils stays just to fill the hole in the pickguard)witha a four way switch to get the extra series pick ups sound.
I am too used to play a telecaster, a three single coil guitar had to much options for me and I was always in doubt between the second and the fourth position of the switch (I rarely used the central pick up by itself).
Now I like it a lot and I play it a lot. the series pick up position give me a sort of humbucking sound very useful.

The guitar is very well made, but considering its age I really can't tell: I made the setup by myself.

It is a old piece of gear and it hold up pretty well.
I had to change the strap buttons (one was missing) and the tremolo spring cover (missing too).
I plan to have new frets installed, anyway it is fully playable as it is.
tuners are perfect.

I am very happy with this little an strange guitar. I am happy to have a squier / fender but not a traditional strat or tele.
My favourite fender guitar is the telecaster (how much I like it...)but this little old friend gives me satisfaction.
It sounds good at reharsals and at gigs (someone sometimes get curious and ask about this strange fender), it is very light and comfortable. It is very good with pedals (my short chain: mxr jimi hendrix octave fuzz - mxr distortion III - ibanez ad9 reissue)and, in the end, has got a good fenderish twangy sound good for anything but metal.

It has 3 pickups and 5 way switch. Maple neck and fretboard not sure of the radius i think i 7.5 or something and very fast. Also it is short scale so it has 21 frets and slightly looser string tension than most most fenders. It is an SQ serial number so it must be from 81-83.The input jack faces out perpendicular to the guitar so it is prone to being stepped on which is the only feature that bugs me sometimes. It has a hard-tail bridge and only one tone control as well which i like as the regular dual controls on a strat slightly confuse me. It has medium frets on it and the headstock is telecaster style.

I like rock/blues/country/jazz/whatever and is great for everything i do but especially for blues. The pickup are kind of noisy which makes it not a very good guitar maybe for metal players but it makes it very responsive and sensitive to your touch which makes it a blues machine. There is so much charachter in each pickup selection with 2 and 4 having a simalar FUNKY twang and quack and the neck pickup has all the throat that you want and the bridge will get thin as hair. So all the stratlike tones i want for clean/overdriven playing. I say strat like because it has a tone of it own. The short scale and telecaster headstock im sure have alot to do with it. It seems to have a llitle more bite than my brothers american standard strat and a slighly wider overall tonal range from high to low maybe the fact that it is close to 30 years old helps.

I bought the guitar used on Ebay about 8 months ago and it was set up kind of wierd but some slight tuning of the bridge screws even her out the intonation was pretty much pefect. It have scrathes and a ding on the side and on the back of the neck when i got it now has maybe a couple more. The finish is still nich a shiny though and the neck is the sweet looking shiny-yellowy vintage fender color which looks awesome with the sunburst.

This guitar would absolutley satnd for live playing but as i said the pickups are slightly noisy so etremely excessive volume requires proper standing location lol. I had to go in and sand some corosion off of the pickup selector because it was cutting out whne i switched pickup sometimes. Other than that this guitar is rock solid.

I got the guitar on ebay if you can find and SQ serial number MADE IN JAPAN squier bullet S3i suggest you buy it they go around on ebay with some regularity but they are becoming more rare as the demand for MIJ squiers is going up. These guitars are made by the same japanese shop that made early 80s squier strats that now sell for up to 1000 dollars. Mine was 260 bucks to my door. buy one of these gems before they go up in value like crazy. I have already seen a few on Ebay going for upwards of 350 dollars and the rare tremolo versions goin for upward of 500.

Six strings, three pups and you even get a whammy bar.

Okay we have here a maple Tele-style neck and 3 Strat-looking pups, with a dinky little mini-Strat body in Ice Blue crinkle finish (looks great in the bathroom)holding it all together. Good closed tuners, probably Gotoh. It's a made-in-Japan Bullet and the serial confirms, built at Fuji-Gen Gakki in 1992.

Great! It sounds great. It really does. Doesn't sound like a Strat, or a Tele either, but what it has going is very sweet and melodic, yet with enough drive to crunch a tube amp. Very nicely too. This has to be the Fender untold secret.

It's as well made as you expect from a Fuji-Gen instrument, excellent. These guys and the late lamented Uncle Mat are who gave the Japanese business the great rep it has. Everything fits as it should. The finish is very good. The neck is lovely.

Look you buy a Fender for the neck, the pups and the best sunbursts known to man. This has two out of three.

This is a well-made instrument. However it is clear that savings have been made in the switchgear. A good clean fixed the crackles (it is a fifteen-year old guitar) and it sounds as good as new, but the tone and volume knobs have a really plasticky feel and they don't roll smoothly the way they should.

No Idea

Escellent instrument, I a am really pleased and surprised by it and how much I like it. It feels great, plays beautifully and sounds fantastic. The neck is a blast-- just amazing, certainly one of the best Fender necks I ever played (and I played a few.) Cheap as chips too.

I have no idea what the new ones are like, made in Korea, the Phillipines, wherever-- no company ever debased its product in the pursuit of a quick buck than Fender-- but i will say this-- if it's a genuine Made In Japan Fender it's a good instrument. I have three and they're as good as US Fenders I used to own, or better.

Me I've been playing 40 years and I have far too many guitars. Trust me, this is a good one.

a good all round and cheap guitar but quite heavy for a small guitar.nice strat shape and easy to use good for beginners.

nice clean sound when used with treble boost dosnt really give good rock sound unless you have a good pedal to use with it. sounds good when used with my wem westminster 115 and a good treble boost mainly for players will use a clean tone.

i had mine set up at the shop so it was set up well but a freind had one out of the box and it sounded tereble and had some loose controls other than that once tuned it sounded ok.

it withstands a good shreding but the stings that come with it snap easely, the strap buttons are ok but not the strongest around.at a gig it may have a few snaped strings but only if your really playing metal.

never had to deal with fender.

i have been playing for about 2 months but have its now april 2008 at time of writing i am going to buy a les paul or sg style vintage as they are only about ??150-??250 and are better than a squire in looks and price but the squire is good for anyone looking for a well known name and quite good value.e-mail me for more queries.

I could not find a Squier Bullet MIJ section so I'm putting the review here in the Fender Bullet section where it seems others have done as well. I guess it's only fitting that this little known gem doesn't have its own spot. Let me paint the picture for you, this is a 1983-84 Squier Bullet 1, SQ serial number stamped on the 4 bolt neck plate, smaller Strat style body with no contours, looks to be 3 piece - not sure what kind if wood, classic sunburst finish, Tele shaped headstock, strangely this one does not have Made in Japan lettered on the headstock. The neck is a maple - 21 fret with stunk stripe (neck has no date on the end, but it has BLT written in black marker on the back where it would connect to the body), the neck profile is well suited for people with small hands and the finish has a nice look and feel to it, it has a maple finger board with black markers, the frets look to be about medium size, the truss rod adjustment is located at the pick guard end of the neck, there is a mock truss rod slot painted on the headstock end, chrome tuners with Fender written on back (I removed a tuner and it is stamped Japan), 3 single coils pickups (they appear to be original, solid bar type magnet on bottom of pickup with white and black lead wires) middle pup is not reverse wound, pickups have white solid covers, 5 way switch, white Strat style knobs 1 volume 1 tone, the cord jack is located on pick guard and plugs in at 90 degree angle, pickguard is 3 ply w/b/w, this model has a tremolo unit but it basically set up as a hardtail, six screws connecting it to the body, the trem arm is missing, white cover plate on back. There is no shielding anywhere to be found on the pick guard or cavities, so it can make a little noise.

The tones that I can get out of this are amazing, a true Blues machine. Wonderful punchy tone from the neck pup and a nice light twang tone from the bridge, and sweet spots all in between, I love it. No brittle or harsh tones to be found. In general I really appreciate pickups with low to moderate output, just give me singing tone and I'll take care of boosting the signal and that's what this guitar delivers. Tone is in the ear of the beholder though. I feel fortunate to have found one that has the original pickups. When I play it, it feels like nothing is stopping or constricting the tone, as if the guitar is free, as natural as wood, magnets and wires can be, a breathe of fresh air man, really I'm very happy with the tone as you can tell

I don't think anyones cares about this section on a 24 year old guitar

Considering this guitar is 24 years old and is still playing great, it's a ten!

never used, never will

This guitar is great, it's super comfortable too, you do not need the contours because of the smaller body, its light and sits well on the body, great for standing or sitting down. It's hard to believe this was student grade instrument, head and shoulders above any student level instrument today, in fact I would rather have this guitar than many of Fenders current offerings, I'm not just saying that either, I've owned a MIM Strat and a MIA Tele that I didn't enjoy as much as this guitar. I replaced the input jack and the 5 way switch and that is all I'm going to do too besides play the hell out of it. It's a very unique looking axe too, the Tele headstock with smaller Strat body is a wonderful combo, different but still has that cool Fender vibe. What's not to like about these guitars, nice sound, nice look, nice feel, nice price, It's a winner all the way around!