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.