The Bullet Strat® is an amazing value for its price, but it is far from perfect. Perhaps its most widely (almost universally) acknowledged weakness is the stock “trapezoid” tuners. The tuners’ gears don’t mesh smoothly, and don’t have any lash adjustment.
In operation they are hard to fine tune and generally won’t hold tune very well.There are a number of suitable replacements – something to fit everyone’s taste – that won’t break the bank. Several good choices are available from both Guitar Fetish and Dragonfire Guitars. You can pick from modern sealed tuners, locking tuners and vintage Kluson-style, as used on early Stratocaster® and Telecaster® guitars.The tuners I chose for my project are nickel plated vintage-style tuners from Dragonfire. They cost only $19.95 plus shipping, and should be a significant improvement over the stock trapezoids. As a plus, they will satisfy my internal traditionalist by giving the guitar a nice, vintage appearance.The stock tuners’ shafts ride in press-fit bushings on the front of the headstock.
Genuine Fender Original Series tuners in nickel finish. Genuine Fender locking tuners in polished chrome finish. Requires 3/8'(10mm) peghead holes.
The bushings that come with the replacement tuners are a larger outside diameter than the stock bushings. Sometimes (depending on the replacement tuners) the replacement tuners’ shafts will fit the stock bushings. If that is not the case, the old bushings must be pressed out from the back and the holes in the headstock enlarged to fit the new bushings.There is more than one way to accomplish this. Perhaps the most correct is to use a drill press with either a metric step drill bit or a 10mm bit to enlarge the holes to the 10mm required for modern tuners, but that requires both an expensive bit and access to a drill press. In my case, I was able to use the bushings already installed in the peghead for the stock tuners. I believe the 8.5mm bushings would actually be smaller than the existing holes, and I know you would need to use a tapered reamer to enlarge the holes to accept 10.5mm bushings.Another UK source for the tuners and other parts is axesrus.uk.
By all accounts they are knowledgeable about their products and quick to respond to customer service inquiries. I would shoot them an email and see what they recommend.
If you buy the larger adapter bushings, at least try to fit the tuners with the stock bushings. You may get lucky as I did and not have to change the bushings at all.
I just put in the Dragon tuners, and they fit really nice. I didn’t even bother to replace the bushings either. For about $28 (including shipping), these are really nice. They have a much better tuning ratio, though I’m not exactly sure what either (original vs Dragons) is.Once you said I wouldn’t have to widen the holes for the bushings, I was sold.Thanks, you saved me some work.The guitar sounds better already. I might not even change anything else.
I might do some file work on the frets though, they’re a little sharp. Or I could just play it until they’re worked in. The Kluson style from Fender did NOT work on my mid-90’s Squier Bullet (Made in China). I really did not think there was anything unique about my headstock compared to other Fenders or Squiers. Yet, here is a link to a photo with what happens when I lined it up:As you can see, it’s looking identical to your picture above where you said it was “close”, except mine goes clearly over with the Low E tuner.
Very disappointing, as I only selected the Kluson-style in the first place because I thought it had the best chance of fitting ?Are there tuners out there where the screw goes either far down to the bottom right on the back, or out to the left? Gotoh style, maybe?
I have so much real estate to work with on the left side for all the tuners, but that Low E isn’t going to work with a screw in the mid- or top-right.Thanks for the help, this posting has been a great resource for me! That’s the condition I was worried about with mine. I’ve seen pictures of them that way, but it appears to be the older Chinese Bullets like yours that the vintage tuners don’t work well with.Guitar Fetish has a few styles of upgrade tuners that will probably work for you.This is a Gotoh-style tuner they carry. As you can see, the mounting screw is low and to the right, and the tuner’s footprint is pretty small so it should fit.They also have Wilkinson vintage and locking tuners that mount similarly. I would think any of the three would work, but I honestly don’t know about the bushing size.
You will most likely have to ream the bushing holes to mount the tuners. As long as you get the proper tapered reamer and take your time, it shouldn’t be too hard.Let me know how it works out for you. Thank you very much for your reply!
Ultimately what I ended up doing was finding some Ping tuners at Guitar Center, and actually left it with a tech to install them because there were a few other projects on there (nut intstall) that required tools and setup expertise I just wasn’t fully comfortable with. I certainly intended to install the Klusons on my own, and was looking for a wood reamer, but I’ll just be happy if it’s done right.Here are the Ping tuners I’m referencing:While they are reputed to be among the “elite” replacement options, I believe they are used on MIM Strats and I’ve run across people online that like them, as they are based on a Schaller design. Most importantly for my purposes, they have virtually no profile other than a small circle on the back of the headstock. In fact, it’s tough to imagine a Strat or Tele headstock these wouldn’t fit on. So if real estate is an issue, these could be an option for some people.I am keeping the Klusons and hopefully will come across another project Fender or Tele to install them on in the future! Hi Tom.I try to keep up with comments, even this long after I wrote the original post.I have recommended tuners similar to those from axesrus to a UK reader before. I can’t guarantee they’ll fit your 2002 Bullet, but there’s a pretty good chance they will.
There are just a couple of things you need to look for.First, remove the existing tuners and leave their bushings in place. There’s a fair chance the new tuners will fit with those bushings.
If so, the swap is easy as pie. If not, you’ll probably have to use the tapered reamer to widen the holes in the headstock to accept the bushings that come with the tuner.The other thing you need to worry about is the overhang. I’ve seen pics of some older Bullets where the vintage tuners hang over pretty far. Looking at mine, I believe if the Low E-string tuner post is more than about 3/4″ (2 cm) from the end of the peghead, the tuner should fit without overhang.
Anything closer than that, you’re probably better off picking a modern Grover style tuner (also available from axesrus).Good luck. Let me know how it works out.
Just thought I would chime in, I just replaced the tuners on my Chinese Bullet (new this year off of ebay). It looked like vintage 6 inline tuners were mostly made for the smaller holes, but the tuners i went with were larger so i had to widen out the holes. I used a dremel, which took a while, probably should have used the reamer pictured above. Tried to check the measurements but it was difficult to tell. On top of that they were too long over all, so the end hangs off slightly and the wood cracked just a bit when I screwed it down.
These are the tuners I went with, and they are more than satisfactory as far as performance goes. All of the vintage tuners I am aware of are also made to vintage measurements. If the holes actually are spaced at an inch, I’m afraid vintage style tuners may be off the table without major surgery or a new neck. You would have to plug all the tuner holes with hardwood dowels and drill new ones at the correct spacing. After all that work, some of the dowel plugs would show on the face of the headstock.This doesn’t mean you can’t upgrade the tuners on your existing neck. You could still change to Gotoh style sealed tuners.
I just think the vintage Kluson style is probably off the table.