Hacking & Accuracy

Howdy, folks.

New SMP owner (silver dial), just coming up on my first month of ownership, having taken delivery on the 1st of October.

So far in the roughly 30 days I've been wearing it, I'm showing that the watch is running +2min 47 seconds fast, or roughly 6 seconds a day. Does that sound about right? I know there's a 'break-in' period that I'm probably not through yet, but curious to know if it's what you guys are experiencing.

Also, with the time change coming up, would you say it's better to just hack the watch for an hour to 'fall back', or is it better to manually wind the hands backwards?

Thanks in advance!

Perhaps not exactly within spec, but not requiring a service either. Hack or wind, probably no difference. Me, I'd wind and reset the time.

What I have taken to doing is setting the watch 15 seconds slow and let it do its thing until it's 15 seconds fast, and then change watch or reset again 15 seconds slow.

The break in period is a myth, a mechanical watch will always show some deviation, depending on how (often) you wear it and some external factors. In theory, it is deteriorating continuously and runs worse and worse, with oils drying up and parts wearing off until you finally bring it in for service.

+6 seconds is not excellent but it's not terribly outside of spec either. Keep in mind that the METAS (and any other) certification does not necesarely guarantee your watch to run between 0-5sec regardless. The certification means that the watch was able to pass the tests (check wiki if you want to know what those are) without deviating more than 0-5sec. Of course the tests are meant to replicate real life conditions, but minor deviation from the numbers on paper is not completely unusual in practice.

About setting the time backwards, I'm not sure if it's bad for the movement. Minor moves backwards shouldn't be a problem with modern watches but my guess would be that moving it back past midnight could be. But someone with more knowledge about movements should chime in here to confirm. The fact I never do it myself has more to do with my OCD as it kills me to see the hands move backwards 😀

Another remark, make sure you learn how to set the date on your watch properly. It is explained in the manual and doing it incorrectly can damage the movement.

Duh. When setting the time back this morning, I realized I was off by 1:47, so all things considered, not bad. I decided to just use the crown and slowly dial back by an hour.

Thanks for everyone's help!

When I'm wearing my Speedmaster Pro Moon, I back hack each morning. If I leave it alone for 24 hours, it seems to run about 6 seconds fast over 24 hours (I've had this watch since around 2003-4). Past that, I don't worry about it.

This is a good read regarding accuracy courtesy of @Archer
https://omegaforums.net/threads/timing-tolerances-a-guide-to-understand-how-they-work.87293/