Ulysse Nardin Blast Dual Time 42mm 243-20-3/43 Review

When starting Hourstriker just under a year ago, we knew that a large part of the site would be watch reviews. Naturally the easier watches for us to review would be those in our personal collection. Before today we actually did “dummy” reviews on two of our personal watches. These reviews were kind of done just as place holders for the review section. There was really no rhyme or reason to them, or any sort of continuality with the pictures of the watches being completely random.

Moving forward, we are going to have much more concise reviews which will include this long form written review along with a shorter video review, where you can see the watches in the metal (or carbon, ceramic, sapphire, etc…).



For our first “official” review, we reached out to our good friends over at Ulysse Nardin and asked if they would be kind enough to send us a watch to review. We did not give them any requests or preferences for which model we’d like to review first, since we felt reviewing a watch that was picked for us would be more organic and make us actually delve deeper into a watch that we might not be as familiar with.

Much to our pleasure FX, Ayisha and Dawn over at Ulysse Nardin were happy to send us one of their watches for review. The watch they picked to send us first was the Blast Dual Time 243-20-3/43 in stainless steel on a rubber strap. The Dual Time is celebrating an anniversary, so they thought the timing was great for it to be reviewed. Would the Blast Dual Time be the first watch I would have asked Ulysse Nardin to send me? Not at all, but that’s all the fun with doing these reviews.



Is there any significant reason I would not have picked the Blast Dual Time as the first watch to review? Not really, but it all boils down to personal preference. For one, between my wife and myself, we only have one watch in stainless steel, which is my wife’s Rolex Yacht-Master 16622. I tend to personally prefer watches for my personal collection that are crafted out of titanium, ceramic or carbon. Since I don’t own a watch under 44 mm, weight becomes a real issue with larger stainless steel watches. At just under 50 mm lug to lug the Blast Dual Time is also a bit smaller than the Offshores and Big Pilots I gravitate towards. Finally the Blast Dual Time is more in the dress watch category than I ventured to with its roman numerals and slim case profile. With Austin being such a casual city, I could count the number of times I have dressed up over the past ten years on one hand. With that I tend to prefer sportier watches for everyday wear.

So heading into this review I was excited to push myself out of my watch comfort zone and wear the Blast Dual Time around for a week or so exclusively. Being totally transparent, this week fell over my birthday and I happened to get my Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Montoya back from having its broken crown replaced on my actual birthday after being gone for months. I did break up wearing the Blast Dual Time to wear the Montoya out to dinner and drinks for my birthday, but otherwise the Blast Dual Time was on my wrist.



The watch arrived in a small Ulysse Nardin travel case and once removed the first thing I noticed was how light the watch was. The last time I spent any real time with a steel watch on my wrist was with the large Sinn U2 in submarine steel. I had actually intended to have the U2 be my vacation watch, but after one short trip realized the watch was just far too heavy for me. So I was extremely surprised with how light the Blast Dual Time ended up being. Needless to say this was a pleasant surprise and with the rubber strap and buckle, the watch weighed in at only 111 grams on our scale.

The watch Ulysse Nardin sent us must have been brand new since it came with virtually every metal surface covered with little clear plastic protectors. I actually didn’t even notice that I had missed taking off a few after wearing the watch out the first time. I kind of felt bad about wearing such a pristine watch, but in general I’m overly careful with watches, so I wasn’t too worried about it. FX also said to go out and have fun with the watch so…



One thing you don’t notice about the Blast Dual Time in pictures is that the bezel is actually a very Deep Blue ceramic. This was one of the first things that caught my eye when first taking a look at the watch. Its amazing how in pictures and videos the bezel sort of blends into the steel case, but in person it’s a real stunner. The polished blue ceramic also matches the blue sunburst dial nicely. I’d imagine that if this watch was your daily or in your rotation that the ceramic could take a good deal of abuse without showing any signs of wear.

The brushed and polished stainless steel case along with the blue polished ceramic bezel give the watch a lot of wrist presence, but is far from overbearing. With the bezel and dial hues being so similar, the dial organically blends into the bezel and case. The oversized roman numerals at 12, 3, 6, and 9 make their presence known, but are not overpowering. The twelve integrates the Ulysse Nardin logo, while the three and nine are intersected by the rectangle dial design. The six is also halved by the small seconds subdial. The home time and big date displays are also incorporated into the rectangle motif of the dial. Overall the dial flows nicely with all the elements needed for a dual time display with big date.



The next feature of the watch that I noticed was how soft and supple the blue rubber strap was. Ulysse Nardin did ask me if I would prefer a rubber strap or leather strap version of the watch to be sent. I tend to really prefer rubber, so that was an easy choice. The strap held well to the skin and kept the watch in place. Now here comes some of my personal preference into the review. I personally can’t stand tang buckles on pricier watches, which the Blast Dual Time is, and would have really loved to see the watch on a deployant clasp. I do believe the leather strap version does come with a deployant while the rubber comes on a buckle. I do understand the deployant can be seen as a dressier option and the tang buckle more the appropriate choice for a rubber strapped watch, but I have dropped one too many watches while flipping a watch over to be buckled than I’d like to admit and all of my personal watches are on deployants. Once again, this is personal preference and nothing against the watch. While talking about the strap, one thing we really like to see on higher end watches is the use of screws for attaching the strap. The Blast Dual Time forgoes traditional spring bars and screws are used to secure the strap. This is a feature we really hope more watches will adopt.

Flipping the watch over reveals the movement powering the Blast Dual Time, in this case the UN-24 self-winding automatic movement. The movement is clearly visible through the sapphire caseback. Based on the higher spec of the tried and true ETA 2892 base movement, Ulysse Nardin adds their in-house module for both Big Date and Dual Time functions. The large decorated rotor with Ulysse Nardin text and logo dominates the visible movement and provides plenty of winding force to keep the watch topped off when worn. The UN-24 has a power reserve of 42 hours and beats away at 4 Hz and 28,000 vph. On our timegrapher the Blast Dual Time reported an accuracy of + 2 seconds per day. While having a fully in-house caliber would be nice, it would surely add substantial cost to the $9,900 retail price. With how reliable the 2892 is and how well done the added module is, we can’t really detract from the use of an ETA base caliber. Three of our favorite watches in our personal collection are not fully in-house either, being the IWC GST Aquatimer 2000, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Montoya and Hublot Big Bang All Black 41. In-house isn’t as important to us as some other features of a watch, but we know for some this will be an issue.



The Blast Dual Time features a polished crown with a recessed Ulysse Nardin logo. The crown is a push / pull style crown that controls setting the Big Date, home time as well as manual winding. A really nice feature on the module that Ulysse Nardin added to the Blast Dual Time is the ability to set the Big Date in both directions forward and back. This is a useful feature on even less complicated watches, but Ulysse Nardin is also the only manufacturer I can think of that did the same on a perpetual calendar which is controlled by the crown. For example my IWC Big Pilot perpetual calendar came set a few weeks ahead, and I had to wait for weeks to pass before I can wear the watch. On the Blast Dual Time, it’s not that severe, but this feature will save you a few seconds when setting your watch.

The other side of the case features a screwed down plaque with the individual case number of the watch on it. This is just a nice touch that makes the Blast Dual Time feel just that much more special. I used to own a Shelby GT350 that also had its chassis number on the dash, which I felt made the car a bit more special. Also found on the left hand side of the case are two pushers used to change the travel time. The upper pusher adds one hour, while the lower pusher removes one hour to the travel time. These pushers have a very nice and firm feel to them and I feel it would be nearly impossible to accidentally change the travel time if you bumped the watch. The travel time will change the date display, but will leave the home time display completely alone.



Now that we’ve gone over some of the technical aspects and design details of the Blast Dual Time, let’s talk about how my week with the watch on the wrist went. Since we have twin 16 month daughters, we typically don’t do anything to exciting. During the week I spent with the Blast Dual Time it accompanied me to dinner twice, a round of drinks as well as running to the grocery store and Home Depot. Now the best compliment I can give is that I never noticed the watch while wearing it. At 111 grams, it’s not feather light, but does weigh in under some of the larger watches I wear. With the stainless steel case, I was a bit worried about the weight of the watch, which turned out to be a non-issue.

My calipers recorded the watch as being 10.5 mm from crystal to caseback, not counting the lugs. With such a slender profile, the Blast Dual Time easily fit under the cuff of my tops and never got caught up on the sleeve. Personally I check my watch fifty percent of the time and my phone the other half when checking the time. For those occurrences I glanced at the Blast Dual Time to see the time, the watch turned out to be extremely legible and easy to read. Besides the large roman numerals, Ulysse Nardin also added full length indices that terminate into the square motif, making it even easier to tell the time at a glance.



As far as overall comfort, I’d say the Blast Dual Time passed with flying colors. The overly supple rubber strap combined with the standard buckle made the watch a treat to wear. I know I do complain when watches do not have a deployant clasp, but for comfort a tang buckle is hard to beat. Nothing is worse than a deployant that digs into your skin. The downward slope of the lugs and caseback design also made sure the watch hugged my wrist and stayed in place. While not a small watch, I can’t stand when a watch favors either side of my 7.25” rather flat wrist. I feel like this is a big reason I tend to stick with larger sized watches.

The Blast Dual Time’s movement and rotor are audible when held close to your ear, but during normal wear you cannot hear anything. I find it a bit weird when you cannot hear a movement at all, which isn’t the case here. On the wrist you cannot feel the rotor moving either, which is something I’ve felt on a few watches recently. During the week I was wearing the Blast Dual Time I never had to wind or set the watch. The 42 hour power reserve was more than enough for frequent wear. I was worried it would run down over my birthday when I wore my Montoya out, but it was still running the next morning.



With Ulysse Nardin being one of my favorite brands and after having a great week with the Blast Dual Time, the question is “Would I buy the Blast Dual Time for my personal collection”?

The answer for me personally is probably not, but by no fault of the Blast Dual Time. Personally I gravitate towards watches with more high-tech cases like carbon, ceramic and titanium. I also prefer slightly larger watches that sway more to the sports watch or diver design. The slim case, polished stainless steel and roman numerals also suggest more of a dress aesthetic as well. With my main dress being mainly shorts, t-shirts and sneakers, it’s a bit too formal for me. The rubber strap and 50 meters of water resistance make it borderline sports territory though. Finally I find it a bit hard to pull off a blue watch with so much black in my wardrobe. All of my personal watches have a black dial minus the Montoya which is my sole non-black watch, with a white dial.



Now these are all highly personal reasons above... Going into this watch review there were many other concerns I had about if I’d like the watch or not. Mostly the Blast Dual Time succeeded in removing those doubts from my mind. The watch even being in stainless steel was much lighter than I anticipated and wore like one of my larger titanium or ceramic watches. The case size even though a little smaller than I tend to prefer, fit on my wrist just fine and stayed centered. The UN-24 movement was rock solid and kept near perfect time. I’ve actually only seen one of my personal watches read more accurate on my timegrapher. I also thought the roman numerals would bug me, but in the end they really didn’t stick out at all. I think Ulysse Nardin’s dial design with the big date, square motif and large indices took some of the focus off of the roman numerals.



In the end Ulysse Nardin has a great watch on their hands with the Blast Dual Time. I know I’m in the minority with a lot of my personal preferences and can see the watch clearly checks a lot of the bullet points modern collectors are looking for a watch to contain in 2024. Four years ago Ulysse Nardin did a really nice refresh with the Blast Dual Time when comparing it to their previous dual time watches. These new Blast Dual Times are much more sophisticated than the prior watches, while also having a toe in the sporting pool.

We hope you found this review of the Ulysse Nardin Blast Dual Time helpful and can’t wait to see what Ulysse Nardin will send our way next!

For more information about the Blast Dual Time please visit : Ulysse Nardin

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: 243-20-3/43

Retail Price: $9,900

Case Size: 42mm

Thickness: 10.5 mm

Weight: 111 Grams

Case Material: Stainless Steel

Bezel: Ceramic

Strap: Rubber with Tang Buckle

Movement: Automatic UN-24

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Small Seconds, Dual Time, Big Date

Power Reserve: 42 Hours

Water Resistance: 50 Meters