The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Two days ago, I happily acquired a Breitling Colt (A74388) from an AD here in Orlando and I’m already concerned about precision. The first thing that caught my attention was the imprecision of the second hand, as in not always precisely striking the indicie - see the picture. The second issue was finding the watch to have drifted one second fast in less than a day. Perhaps I need to manage my expectations but I also have a Seiko Astron SSE079 and I have yet to experience either of these precision issues, and I wasn’t expecting to see a second off on the "Superquartz" Colt for at least a month. Should I return the watch?

In my experience the seconds hand on Breitling / Colt quartzes rarely hits the marker bang on - at least consistently - and it's something I think one has to live with. It's one reason some people prefer a mechanical watch, where the sweeping seconds hand doesn't generate this issue. (One reason I like the Aerospace is that it's SQ without having the ticking s.h).

Re the accuracy / gain, yes that's more than you'd expect of a SQ but I think you'd have to monitor it for at least a week - and against a reliable measure - before you could be confident about it being +1 per day. In the interim perhaps you could warn the vendor that you had this anxiety and were therefore monitoring it, as opposed to be appearing to return it one or two weeks later.

Much appreciate your exeprienced input (esp. the markers). Regarding the accuracy, I had first synchronized the watch to my Seiko Astron. The next day when I found it to be a full second off, I called the Naval Observatory Clock to see which watch was off. The Seiko was spot on plus it’s never has any issue with the second hand not hitting the markers precisely. With my mechanicals, the expectations with precision are far less but I wanted an HAQ in the collection and I’m expecting it be so. I'll continue to monitor but I don't think I'll keep this one.

I feel your pain regarding hitting the second markers. I've got a B50 and the same thing happens. It's hits the second markers on 50% of the dial only. I complained about this before and people said I must get over it


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