The Mucky Puppy - Plays nice. Bites hard.

The Muck Puppy sits right in the sweet spot between vintage output and modern high-output designs. It isn’t trying to recreate a 1950s pickup, and it isn’t trying to knock your amp flat on its back either. Instead, it’s designed to be useful — responsive, expressive, and capable across a wide range of gain levels without ever feeling boxed into one sound.

At its core, the Muck Puppy is about headroom and balance. There’s enough output to push an amp confidently into overdrive when you want it to, but plenty of breathing space left when you don’t. Clean tones stay warm and full rather than thin or brittle, and driven tones build naturally, with punch and authority instead of sudden compression or fizz.

We chose an Alnico 2 magnet for its even-handed response and rich midrange character. It delivers a sweetness and harmonic complexity that really comes alive as you dig in, but it’s equally happy sitting back and behaving itself for cleaner rhythm work — especially in the neck position. That balance is what allows the Muck Puppy to work so well under everything from edge-of-breakup blues, through classic and hard rock, and into heavier territory when pushed.

Wound to 10.2K, the Muck Puppy is unmistakably hotter than a traditional vintage pickup, but without sacrificing clarity, dynamics, or low-end integrity. The bass stays tight and controlled, the highs are present without being sharp, and the mids have enough muscle to cut without ever feeling overbearing. It’s thicker and more aggressive than a vintage humbucker, but stops well short of the saturation and compression you’d expect from a true high-output design.

In practical terms, that means:

• Harder rock comes easily

• Vintage-style tones sound fuller and more authoritative

• High gain is available without losing definition

• Clean and low-gain sounds still feel alive and responsive

The Muck Puppy isn’t a compromise pickup — it’s a deliberate middle ground. A hotter take on a vintage idea, without throwing away the tone, dynamics, and musicality that made those designs great in the first place.

If you’re the kind of player whose tastes don’t stop at one genre, the Muck Puppy might be exactly what your guitar’s been missing.

Gibson®, Epiphone®, Stratocaster® and Strat® are registered trademarks of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and Gibson Musical Instruments Corporation. Axesrus® has no affiliation with FMIC

Should be just below!

Between you, me and the fence post, I'm more an engineer then i am a salesman, so to scratch that itch - I’m compelled to not only write up the unavoidable "hey, this pickup great! Play Rock or Blues?! This one’s for you!", but for the sake of balance, it’s only fair that I get to write up what they're not great at too (and because this section isn't "up front" - I get to be a bit more technical about it too! Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to explain what all those lovely buzz words actually mean eh?)

Remember too - whilst I’m writing this stuff about Axesrus® pickups, its true of every pickup ever made. Even if you’re not buying ours, this stuff is handy! It’s all true! all pickups have characteristics that make them good or bad... there are no perfect pickups!

42 AWG Coils

The Good

When we talk about "vintage" humbuckers, what we’re really talking about is wire gauge — and that has to be 42 AWG (American Wire Gauge). In humbuckers, this wire typically runs to somewhere between 7k and 8.5k ohms, and tonally, it’s the heart of the vintage humbucker sound.

It’s what gives us that roomy, open quality, but with real clarity and authority. High resonant peak, tight Q factor — that’s where you get the snap and twang, that airy feeling that makes a pickup sound uncompressed and alive, but never weak or shrill.

In short, it’s the voice of every guitar you grew up loving.

The Bad

Let’s not sugar-coat it: 42 AWG is expensive. Painfully so. But it’s also essential.

It’s based on the imperial measurement system and has a diameter of 0.0635mm. It was the standard wire for pickups in the '50s and '60s, especially in the U.S., and it’s what wound up in nearly every classic Gibson® and Fender®.

But as manufacturing went global, most industries moved to metric. In that world, wire is measured in millimetres, not gauges — and most use 0.06mm wire instead. It’s nearly identical in diameter, and in most applications (like tiny electric motors), the difference is negligible.

But for guitar pickups? That difference matters.

Why That Matters

In pickups, the wire isn’t just a delivery mechanism — it is the tone.

And that tiny 0.0035mm difference between 42 AWG and 0.06mm affects everything. Resonant peak shifts. Q factor broadens. The output drops slightly. You lose some of that crispness, the sparkle, the "breath" that good 42 AWG pickups have.

42 AWG sounds like every record from 1950 onward. It’s burned into our brains. It’s the reference point. Even if you've never picked up a guitar before, you've heard it. It’s what your brain expects a guitar to sound like.

So when cheap pickups are wound with 0.06mm wire? They’re close — but not quite. They’ll still sound like a guitar, and they’ll do a perfectly serviceable job. But they don’t quite hit the same. That edge, that feel — it’s missing.

The Problem

Cheap pickups almost always use metric wire. It’s dirt cheap, and it technically works. So why haven’t we all switched? Because the tone changes, and we can hear it.

Even worse, some manufacturers pass off 0.06mm wire as 42 AWG. Some even invent strange in-betweens like “42.5 AWG” to explain the difference. And sure, on paper, it looks close enough. But in reality, it’s the difference between "good for the money" and "actually good."

All because of 0.0035mm.

So when you see pickups that cost £15 and sound pretty good, and others at £250 that sound unbelievably good? That’s why.

So What Do We Do?

We use real 42 AWG — and yes, it costs. But the tone is worth it.

It’s not just about output. True 42 AWG has less internal compression, more headroom, and more immediacy. It’s clean, snappy, and articulate. If you're chasing that expressive, uncompressed vintage feel, there’s no substitute.

Now, if you want a pickup with more punch and chew, something tighter and hotter, built for metal rather than blues or classic rock? You’re probably not chasing 42 AWG. You’re looking for 43 AWG, where things get a bit denser and gutsier — that’s where our Model 24 lives.

But if you’ve read this far into a deep-dive about vintage humbucker wire specs, I’m guessing you're in the right place.

Medium Output

There are few phrases in the guitar world more uninspiring than “medium output”. It sounds like something that does everything adequately, never excels at anything, and politely stays out of the way. And I get why — we all want to be told this pickup has the most tone, the biggest gain, the most notes, and will absolutely dominate the very specific sub-genre of music we happen to love.

That sort of thinking makes life much easier when you’re talking about faithful vintage recreations or ultra-specialist high-output designs. Pickups like the Muck Puppy and the Purist don’t really work like that — but that doesn’t mean they’re stuck in the middle lane either. What we’re actually talking about here is versatility, not mediocrity.

I tend to think of medium-output pickups as the session player’s choice. They don’t behave in an aggressively specialist way, which means they’re comfortable across a huge range of sounds. You can run them sparkling clean, with all the headroom and warmth you’d expect from a vintage-leaning pickup, or you can lean on them hard and head confidently into more compressed, higher-gain territory.

Will they do vintage better than a true vintage-spec pickup?
No — you’re not going to plug in and instantly declare “Ah yes, June 1959, extra lemon oil on the fretboard.”

And are they going to win a downtuned, C-standard djent shoot-out against your mate’s Doom Bringer 9000™?
Also no. He’s going to flatten you.

But if you’ve got a jazz gig on Monday, you’re depping for an “Amy Housewine” tribute on Wednesday, “Shred Zeplin” have booked you for a studio session on Thursday, and you’re stuck at Butlins with a party band from Friday to Sunday… honestly? One guitar with one pickup set that does everything well is an absolute gift.

You’re not maintaining fifteen different guitars.
You’re not presenting fifteen different versions of yourself.
You’ve got one familiar tool that you know inside and out because you play it every day.

Your guitar becomes a Swiss Army knife, not a surgeon’s scalpel.

And even saying all that, it’s very easy to accidentally frame medium-output pickups as “just OK, but at least they’re versatile” — which does them a massive disservice. They aren’t just OK. Medium-output pickups sound great. They handle gain better than vintage pickups, they handle cleans better than high-output pickups, and they live comfortably in the space most music actually occupies.

They just don’t chase the extremes.

And honestly? If you’re a guitarist who simply enjoys playing guitar, that’s a very good place to be.

Alnico 2 Magnet

The Good
While the coils still do the majority of the work in any humbucker, magnet choice plays a crucial supporting role in how that tone is ultimately presented. For a medium-output pickup, Alnico 2 is a particularly smart fit. Being slightly weaker than other Alnico grades, it applies less magnetic pull to the strings, allowing the coils to respond more freely and naturally.

In practical terms, this gives a warm, rounded low end, a smooth, vocal midrange, and a top end that stays present without becoming sharp or spiky. In a medium-output design, that balance is exactly what you want: enough body and fullness to sound confident and authoritative, but plenty of openness and dynamic range left intact. The pickup reacts to your hands, cleans up properly when you back off, and pushes an amp in a controlled, musical way when you dig in.

Rather than forcing a strong tonal fingerprint, Alnico 2 helps the pickup feel even-handed and expressive. It doesn’t exaggerate any one frequency range, which is a big part of why medium-output humbuckers work so well across different gain levels and in both neck and bridge positions. The result is a pickup that feels alive, responsive, and adaptable — not locked into one specific sound.

The Bad
As with anything in pickup design, it’s all relative. Alnico 2’s warmth can tip into “too polite” territory if you’re chasing aggressive attack, ultra-tight low end, or a sharper, more cutting edge. Compared to stronger magnets, it won’t clamp down on the bass or hype the upper mids in the same way — and that means it won’t deliver the brittle bite or immediacy some players associate with more modern or high-output designs.

If your reference points are players who favour a more rigid, forward tone — tighter lows, faster attack, and a slightly harder edge — then a stronger magnet may suit you better. But for a medium-output pickup that’s meant to live comfortably between vintage sweetness and modern drive, that restraint is very much the point.

As a default, Alnico 2 keeps things musical. It preserves headroom, supports dynamics, and lets the pickup cover a lot of ground without sounding forced or over-engineered. And if you know you want something a little firmer or a little sharper? Swapping magnets is a simple tweak that can fine-tune the feel without redesigning the entire pickup — no need to juggle endless product variants to get there.

The Classic is a humbucker that covers an awful lot of ground - so this might get a little long winded, so, to keep it brief, there aren't many pickups we make that you couldn't match with them, but, i'll try to keep this a little more focused, so if your mixing and matching, your going to really get the best out of the set.

That classic combination of a 4.8H/7.7K/alnico 3, mounted to a standard humbucker base, is capable of working in a Strat®, a Tele®, A Les Paul®, an SG®... prety much anywhere you'd find a humbucker, this is going to fit, and electrically, its going to play well with most pickup specs too, so, the first thing to remember - dont fear the Bourbon! Its about as easy going as it gets when it comes to humbuckers.

However, its certainly got "a style" - its wide reaching,(and i'd probably have an easier time writng the list of things that DONT work with them!) but lets keep that "this is a sleazy, spicy, vintage humbucker" in mind when we're talking matched sets.

Humbuckers

Classic - Traditionally, Humbucker guitars have "truly matched sets" - and, frankly, i think it works best. So, obviously, if your fitting a Classic in the neck, having one in the bridge is going to give you "the full experience" - and thats a very traditional setup, very focused on blues and rock, the bridge will be capable of chords and lead work without feeling too specialist - a good, normal, versitile setup!

Model 24 - There will be situations where you want "more" from your bridge pickup, and whilst the Classic is a great option in its own right, you do, occasionally, find situations where your treading the fine lne between Rock and Metal - and in those situations, the Model 24 makes an ideal companion pickup for a Bourbon neck - its more rounded, more muscullar, a little more capable, a little happier whendistorted and has more natural compresion - HOWEVER - its not my first choice for a neck pickup, so, if your considering a M24 bridge, the classic works great to give you a smoother, sweeter counter point to what is, really, quite an aggressive, expressive humbucker.

Telecaster®

With the "Humbucker Neck" Telecaster® being a pretty popular modification nowadays, i'll keep this one as "to the point" as i can, but i do have to get bogged down a little into the science side of it.

Most Tele® models will, 99% of the time, have a single coil in the bridge, and that single coil will most defnately want 250k pots.

Fitting a humbucker in the neck slot, means you'll probably want 500k pots (to retain top end from the humbucker)

Further more, single coils, traditionally, dont induce the same strength signal as humbuckers - in simple terms, they're not as loud - so, whilst we can account for 500k vs. 250k pots (a 470k resistor wired in parallel with the single coil will sort it! Like this loom.) - we've still got to work with the pickups inductance/volume - and to do that, you've got to have slightly hotter bridge pickups in this setup - trying to match an out and out vintage bridge pickup with ANY humbucker, is going to leave you very disappointed when you hear how weak the bridge pickup is compared to the neck!

These, however, are safe bets for all vintage humbuckers, and work well with the Bourbon City.

Yorkshire Jack - Great little pickup - what i'd call a "modern tone" for a Telecaster (which means 1990s onward) - its not as twangy as you'd hear from a 50s/60s affair, but its much happier under a little gain or distortion. It feels, weirdly, like a Humbucker - its a big more "spiky", with that twang you'd expect, but its in the ball park of humbuckers like the Bourbon, which means its going to play well on the same amp settings, and, frankly, it'll even do a decent job on 500k pots thanks to its higher industance! Cant go wrong with a Yorkshire Jack/Bourbon Combo for me.

T90 - If the Yorkshire Jack is humbucker adjacent, the T90 is a P90 in sheeps clothing - its HUGE, wound up with 42 AWG, inducing up around 6H, its a fantastic pickup. It retains alot of the headroom you'd expect from 42 AWG, its got a very throaty "twang" rather then the slightly waspish "brrrrring" you get with "very vintage" pickups, and again, its perfectly at home on 500ks. Big and Muscullar, but happier on cleans/slightly dirty because its much roomier then the YJ, and that lack of compression does guide you more towards cleans with a touh of diirt more then "chain saw" distortion.

A WARNING - remember, when your working with Humbucker Neck Tele® guitars - unless you can find an ingenius way of coil splitting the humbucker when the switch is in "neck + bridge in parallel" - your going to get an awful lot of phase cancellation (with one coil from the humbucker wiping out the bridge pickup - most never bother to fix it, and accept that pos 2 is "something weird", but...) to get it to work "properly" you're going to need to do something very clever with the wiring!

Stratocaster®

Strings Ransom - originally designed as the companion pickup, specifically for the Bourbon in HSS and HSH guitars! Built around Alnico 2 poles rather then the traditional alnico 5s, giving them a more rounded, slightly dirty feel, with a stronger bass and not as much "snap" as a traditional Strat®, a little chewier, a little grubbier, a little more forgiving if you throw them about. Great for, pretty much, everything you'd expect from a vintage humbucker.

Texas Blues - Much more traditional, much more "this is what a Strat should sound like" - raw and rasping and raunchy, plenty of snap, backed up with alot of body. A great option if your wanting "Gibson and Fender" in the same guitar. Pairing with a Classic wont give you as much of a "dedicated blues wabbler" but they'll give you alot of versitility.

TB754S - A bit left field, and whilst they'll work, i cant think that a SSH and HSH guitar really NEEDS a TB754 myself - they're a fairly specialist pickup, wound "as hot as you can go" with 42 AWG, so they're bit and biting and roomy, but also, quite dark and brooding - a Strat pickup without the razor blades. Not for me personally, atleast in a reverse HSS or HSH, but, never have it said i'm the best judge of taste!

A WARNING - just like on the Tele, you want to be finding a way to coil split the humbucker whenever its "on" with a single coil, otherwise, the 3 coils will phase cancel out, and it'll sound like you've got a bridge single coil in pos 2. Thankfully, plenty of ways to do that, even with standard 5 way switches! If in doubt, get in touch and i'll talk you through it. (obviously, "tech support within reason" - i'm not here to fix your guitar, i'm here to support Axesrus parts)

Bode Plots

	Swap Graphs?
	Pickup #1 Humbucker Single Coil Telecaster P90 Offets Bass Other Hot Iron Classic Bourbon City True 50s Heretic Bourbon City Devestator Ethereal Model 24	Pickup #2 Humbucker Single Coil Classic Bourbon City Devestator Ethereal Heretic Hot Iron Model 24 True 50s

Honesty & Transparency

In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to write this section. But since pickups are complex, custom-made instruments — it’s only fair to be upfront about how they’re made, your consumer rights, and what you can expect from us.

How We Build Your Pickup

Every Axesrus pickup is made to order. When you click “Add to Cart,” there’s no pre-made stock waiting on the shelf — your pickup is crafted entirely from scratch using parts we have available.

That means:

• Your pickup is wound, assembled, soldered, tested, polished, wax potted, and retested by hand.

• The process happens in-house, at a small scale — typically around 6 pickups per day.

• Because we build carefully and meticulously, your pickup is made just for you, to the exact specifications you selected.

Realistically, this means a lead time of about 2 weeks, though it can vary depending on order volume. Pickups will never ship same-day.

Returns Policy

Since your pickup is a one-of-a-kind, custom-made product, it cannot be returned or refunded once production has begun. This aligns with UK distance selling regulations around custom work.

No “try it and see if you like it” or “return if the colour’s not right” — once a pickup is wound for you, it’s yours.

Warranty Coverage

We stand behind our pickups with a relaxed lifetime warranty — no registration required, and no arbitrary time limits on support.

• Free repairs or replacements may be offered if a manufacturing fault appears within a reasonable timeframe.

• We assess warranty claims on a case-by-case basis, considering the age and condition of the pickup.

• Early, low-cost pickups (like our first £20 ones!) may not be eligible for free repairs after many years of use, but we’ll always offer repair services at a fair price.

• For higher-end pickups, like a £200 humbucker, you can expect us to do our best to get you back up and running.

Important: We are happy to extend warranty coverage to new owners within 24 months of the original purchase, as long as we can verify the initial sale.

Damage vs Fault

Pickups are delicate. Faults can result from:

• Manufacturing defects

• Damage during shipping or installation

• Wear and tear

We generally approach warranty claims with the benefit of the doubt, assuming a manufacturing fault unless damage is obvious or severe.

• Minor damage or installation mishaps are often repaired just like manufacturing faults.

• Heavily damaged or intentionally broken pickups will not be repaired or replaced under warranty, free or paid.

Lead Times & Cancellations

Once you place an order and production begins, there’s no cancellation or backing out. Your pickup enters the production queue immediately.

Modifications After Purchase

Want a different magnet, cover, or wiring after you’ve received your pickup? Usually, we can help — for the cost of parts and postage.

More complex modifications are evaluated case-by-case and aren’t covered by warranty.

Variations & Specifications

Pickup specs may vary slightly due to:

• Manufacturing tolerances

• Temperature changes

• Material variations (wire gauge, alloys, etc.)

Such normal variations are not grounds for warranty claims.

Warranty Postage

Shipping costs for repairs or replacements after the initial 14-day period are the customer’s responsibility.

If you ever have questions, concerns, or just want to talk pickups, we’re here to help — no matter how long it’s been since your purchase.