Do you need a beater if you have a Speedmaster?

whyboddau

Wear it! Beat it up! It’s a tool watch afterall. One shortcoming of my Speedy is the low water resistance. Otherwise like commented above, it’s a daily. My beach beater is a seamaster.

Ville_W

You don’t need a beater unless you spend time in the sea. A well maintained speedy is an excellent beater and look good on your wrist even with some battle scares. I actually have an idea to get my 3’rd Speedy just to use as beater😁

Bimmerman77

Enjoy the watch man. As a former bodybuilder and now power lifter, I don’t know how you can wear a watch in the gym. It doesn’t dig into your wrists when benching or squatting?

Tekashi_145.022

I know this is an eye-raising question for a number of reasons, but I’d like to push the envelope here. While the Speedmaster is considered a luxury watch nowadays, I want to assess it based on its origin as a durable tool watch.

I typically switch to a Swiss Army when I do something active (weight lifting, running, yard work, etc.), and for a while was considering an Explorer as a beater. Now, I’m wondering if it would be superfluous to my Speedmaster, since it matches NASA’s specs requiring:

1. Shock - Six shocks of 40g each, in six different directions, with each shock lasting 11 milliseconds.
2. Acceleration - The test item shall be accelerated linearly from 1g to 7.25g within 333 seconds, along an axis parallel to the longitudinal spacecraft axis.
3. Decompression - 90 minutes in a vacuum of 1.47 x 10E-5 psi (10 E-6 atm) at a temperature of 160° F (71° C), and 30 minutes at a 200° F (93°C).
4. High Pressure - The test item shall be subjected to a pressure of 23.5 psi (1.6 atm) for a minimum period of one hour.
5. Vibration - Three cycles of 30 minutes (lateral, horizontal, vertical, the frequency varying from 5 to 2000 cps and back to 5 cps in 15 minutes. Average acceleration per impulse must be at least 8.8g.
6. Acoustic Noise - 130dB over a frequency range from 40 to 10,000 HZ, for a duration of 30 minutes.

If my Speedy can withstand the above (albeit with some impact to timekeeping), so what if I knock it against a few weights from time to time? Obviously, an Explorer would be preferable - Rolex claims their watches “have to pass more than 20 different drop tests before their launch...exclusive shock-testing equipment submits the watch to an impact equivalent to 5,000 G - hundreds of times more than a car crash test. Yet the watch has to remain unharmed and fully functional afterwards...” but I wonder if it’s really necessary if you own a Speedy.

Plus, there are fun anecdotes on these forums, like a Speedmaster that was run over by a car and still worked. Of course, on the other end of the spectrum, I read a story of someone who knocked their pusher off on the door frame of an RV...

What do you guys think?

Tekashi_145.022

My gym watches used to dig into my wrist until I swapped to a NATO. I hardly notice them now. Great for deadlifts, squat, bench, etc. but haven’t tried all of the Olympic lifts with them... Maybe not ideal for a hang clean or snatch.

You guys are pushing me to bring my Speedy to the gym...!

michael22

So... you feel the need for a beater?😎