Opinions sought: best Tele bridge pickup?

[t_ross33]

My concern re: the Lil Puncher and other rail-type pickups is that I'll lose too much of the essential Tele character, which I don't want to sacrifice too much of. I'm not looking to make the bridge sound like a 'bucker or even a P90. I still want that Tele single coil character, but with a bit less twang and a bit more girth.

No worries there. I have the "Modern Vintage" 10K Lil Puncher bridge p'up, and it has spank to spare. I have it tapped, but find I don't use the single coil tone much at all, even for chickin'-pickin'. I think the Tele bridge/saddle combo contributes as much or more to the "spank" than the p'up does.

It will grind when pumped through a good OD or Distortion pedal, and I imagine it will push the front end of a tube amp a bit more than a single coil, but it's still far spankier than the bridge p'ups in either of my humbucker equipped guitars.

[mrmudcat]

I like the scn in my candy tele

The seymour in my koa tele(APTL-1 bridge) in my other is also sweet with that vintage tone in my opinion! I have it locked down on tele tone with those two,im sure more teles await my purchase though: :

[wingsdad]

Between addressing markb's points about brass bridge saddles (original Tele design: ash body, brass saddles) and pot values (should be 250K), you may not need a different bridge pickup.

[duhvoodooman***]

Between addressing markb's points about brass bridge saddles (original Tele design: ash body, brass saddles) and pot values (should be 250K), you may not need a different bridge pickup.

You may very well be right. The guitar came with 500K pots (no idea why GFS does this with Strat & Tele style single-coil guitars!), but I changed them out for 250K's immediately, which tamed some of the high-end. I will certainly wait until I hear it with the brass saddles installed before making a pickup change decision (if & which).