Hands-On: the Astor+Banks Sea Ranger M2

Earlier this month when Kat Shoulders and I were discussing the concept of the “gateway watch” on the Worn & Wound podcast, the Astor+Banks Sea Ranger M2 was sitting just out of reach on my desk. I didn’t mention the newest iteration of the Sea Ranger concept in our discussion, but I very easily could have. This is a rock solid sports watch made by a micro-brand that has proven to be foundational in the space over the years, with just a little bit more than meets the eye when it comes to the finer details. Those details are the kinds of things that make a watch buyer a watch enthusiast, and there’s no doubt about it, Astor+Banks is an enthusiast focused brand. Still, the Sea Ranger M2 strikes me as the type of watch that, if it existed ten years ago, would be an easy recommendation for someone just starting out. 

The Sea Ranger M2 is positioned as a do-it-all adventure and tool watch, with a litany of impressive specs: 300 meters of water resistance, soft iron plates shielding the movement from magnetism, a pair of screw down crowns, a quick-adjust clasp (more on that later) and a La Joux-Perret movement with a 68 hour power reserve. These, for the most part, are calling cards of the modern tool watch, a baseline for what a brand has to do in order to claim their watch is a true go-anywhere-do-anything kind of timepiece. The micro-brand space is saturated (perhaps oversaturated) with watches in this genre, so it takes some work to stand out from the crowd. I don’t know that the Sea Ranger M2 will be that watch for everyone, but it certainly has a mix of refinements and little flourishes that will make it the obvious choice for some. 

And the first priority, always, is wearability. That, to me, is where the Sea Ranger M2 shines brightest. Astor+Banks founder Andrew Perez is a lifelong watch nerd, and if you’ve spoken to him at a Windup Watch Fair in the past, you probably learned pretty quickly that he has a deep watch knowledge and has worn watches of all kinds. It’s this experience, I imagine, that led to the case proportions being just about idea on the Sea Ranger M2. The round stainless steel case measures 40mm in diameter, 45.5mm from lug to lug, and 12.5mm thick. I haven’t tested this theory out, but I’d bet a decent chunk of my watch fund that if you asked an AI to spit back the ideal dimensions given a starting point of a 40mm diameter, you’d get awfully close to the measurements of the Sea Ranger M2. On the wrist it feels well balanced and proportional, and it also has a pleasing heft to it, likely a matter of those soft iron plates to protect the movement, and maybe the particular surgical grade steel alloy that’s being used here. 

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Hands-On: the Astor+Banks Sea Ranger M2

Case
Stainless steel
Movement
LJP G100 Automatic
Dial
Army Green
Lume
Yes
Lens
Sapphire
Strap
Steel bracelet, rubber strap
Water Resistance
300 meters
Dimensions
40 x 45.5mm
Thickness
12.5mm
Lug Width
20mm
Crown
screw down
Warranty
yes
Price
$1299

If there’s an issue with the case, it’s in the slightly pedestrian shape and finishing. The geometry, in my opinion, is just not that interesting, and the brushed finishing is a little dull. This is likely a byproduct of the 1200HV scratch resistant coating that’s been applied, a feature on some watches of this type that give them a uniform appearance that sacrifices character for the promise of an unblemished finish. Whether you prefer the look and feel of a more difficult to scratch case is of course a matter of personal taste. I tend to respond more positively to complex case geometry and varied finishing techniques that complement each other, but the Sea Ranger M2 isn’t that kind of watch. As a watch conceived as a pure tool, this type of finishing is certainly appropriate. I’d just be interested to see how someone like Andrew, with all of that watch knowledge, might decide to bend the rules and upend expectations when it comes to tool watch design. He did, after all, put a mother-of-pearl dial in the Fortitude Pro, well ahead of the current trend. 

Dual crowns are affixed to the case, one at 4:00, which is used for winding and setting the watch, and the other at 2:00, which controls the internal 12-hour bezel. Both crowns screw down, which is the cause of my chief frustration with watches of this type, and that’s the difficulty in keeping the bezel where you want it while in the act of screwing it down. It’s not impossible to push down on the crown, begin screwing it back in, and not see the bezel move just slightly, but it’s very difficult, and might even come down to a matter of luck. It is, of course, a 12-hour bezel, so precision here isn’t as critical as if we were dealing with a dive style bezel, for instance, where timing to the minute is necessary, but it still feels like a design flaw, not with the Sea Ranger necessarily but for this type of bezel execution in a more general way. I have yet to encounter one that didn’t have this exact same problem. 

On the plus side, the bezel itself is great, and might be the Sea Ranger M2’s secret weapon, that feature that makes an owner a true enthusiast. The bezel is packed with C1 X1 grade Super-LumiNova, and it looks fantastic when it’s fully charged. It glows a bright, Toxic Avenger green, and because the bezel is raised slightly off the dial it provides a cool depth effect when paired with the similarly brightly lumed hands and markers. I’m not even really a big lume guy, but if I had permanent access to this watch charging it up would probably be a regular occurrence on those conference calls that tend to get a little long, or while I’m absent mindedly streaming a movie I’ve seen a dozen times before in the wee hours of the morning. 

The dial is straightforward but nicely executed. Again, it’s not overly complex, but it serves the purpose of the watch nicely, and has a few small details that make it stand out a bit. The markers, as mentioned, are lumed and applied, and they also have nicely polished surrounds that do well at picking up light. The interior sector is cordoned off from the exterior, providing just a bit of extra visual interest. Some might complain about excess dial text, but I think the “Sea Ranger M2” wordmark in red is a nice touch, and the layout is a nice visual homage to classic Rolex sports watches without being too obvious about it. 

Of the review samples I was sent, I found myself mostly wearing the Army Green dial variant on the color matched rubber strap. It’s a very comfortable and pliable rubber, and I think this watch works really well on a strap. The bracelet is very nice as well, and the links offer an impressive amount of articulation and it’s all very comfortable. The clasp is equipped with the Nodex quick adjust clasp, made by Nodus, the California based micro-brand. It works pretty well, but I’ll note that on each of the sample watches I tested, the mechanism had a distinctly different “feel.” One was perhaps too smooth and felt a little vague, and might prove difficult to adjust to precisely the right length, and the others were tougher to activate by varying degrees. Sometimes with brand new components it can take some time for them to “break in,” so it’s completely possible this is what I was experiencing on these review samples. We’ve all probably had the experience of using a brand new clasp or other metal object and everything being a little tighter than you’d like it to be, but these things have a way of settling in and it’s totally possible that if wore these watches for three months or three years instead of three weeks this small issue would resolve itself on its own. 

The Sea Ranger M2 is an impressive option at its $1,299 retail price (that’s the price on a bracelet, with a color matched rubber strap included as well). This watch accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, which is to be a tough and ready for anything timepiece that also has a little bit of personality behind it. Other watches you might compare it to that have scratch resistant cases, 300 meters of water resistance, and are anti-magnetic might be somewhat dour affairs – this is the realm of the ultra tactical, after all. The Sea Ranger M2 is a lot more playful than you might expect it to be if you just looked at the specs, with the lume doing most of the heavy lifting here. It’s not a perfect watch, but it’s definitely the kind of watch a particular collector might really fall for, and that’s an accomplishment in and of itself. Astor+Banks

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Zach is a native of New Hampshire, and he has been interested in watches since the age of 13, when he walked into Macy’s and bought a gaudy, quartz, two-tone Citizen chronograph with his hard earned Bar Mitzvah money. It was lost in a move years ago, but he continues to hunt for a similar piece on eBay. Zach loves a wide variety of watches, but leans toward classic designs and proportions that have stood the test of time. He is currently obsessed with Grand Seiko.
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