Wide Range pickup Experience

Dustym2566

I used to have a Telecaster deluxe as my main guitar for a long time the twin humbucker model but a long time ago.

I see some wide range humbuckers on the market now from Oil city and Mojo has anybody had any experience on these as Telecaster
no.2 is heading for a refit next week.

Going fro the humbucker at the neck and late 60s style wound single  tele pickup at the bridge

Dusty

ThePrettyDamned

Wide range humbuckers are bigger than normal - they're enormous.  Not sure if you can get the same or similar design in a regular sized pickup or not.  

So make sure your guitar has the right route!

Other than that, I have no idea but I'd imagine they sound great and very close to the originals.

OilCityPickups

I can only speak for my own Buccaneer WRs, but as @ThePrettyDamned says, they are significantly bigger than 'Gibson' style humbuckers.
Personally I set out to take the basic WR design and improve it for the modern world. CuNiFe magnets are difficult to obtain, horrible to work with, and have proved to be unstable in the long term (many original WRs are now almost magnetically dead). My own Buccaneers use alnico rod mags, slotted to look like pole screws. This gives the defined, 'separate string' sound of the original without the hassle. I also fit four conductor wiring as a no cost option ... to allow very accurate single coil sounds with the right switching. In all other respects the Buccaneer is like a 72 WR ... over-sized bobbins with a big load of 42awg wire (not standard humbucker bobbins as Fender use these days) ... a big, low carbon steel reflector plate, like the original, sat under the coils to fatten up the sound, oh, and the pickups have been calibrated to provide an even response between a pair.

Dustym2566

so am i better with a a normal PAF and a bridge pickup rather than the extra route and custom cut scratch plate

Dusty

OilCityPickups

A PAF won't sound anything like a WR ... many of us makers do pickups that sound more WR like in normal HB packages. My Oil City BrassKnuckle for example ... 
But you have to be certain you want a WR sound. 
Any good humbucker will give you an ... um ... humbucking sound ... but a WR is a different beast entirely.

WezV

I had an original a few years ago.   I really liked it, but i got it relatively cheap because the original owner hated it.    I had to sell it at a point I was between career paths.  I put it on ebay on a 99p no reserve auction and it finished at £415.   Even though i liked it, and now own other pickups that would fetch at least that amount, i don't think i would be tempted by another original wide range  unless one happens to appear as cheap as I got the first one