Every BENRUS watch since 2025 has been a rerun. The Type 3X is the first new episode. The American watchmaker founded in 1921 just dropped a brand-new, modern field watch built with input from former Tier One special-operations veterans.
It’s the first watch since the brand’s 2025 relaunch that isn’t a reissue of an old design: the Vietnam-era DTU-2A/P, the Type 1 and Type 2 favored by Navy SEALs and Special Forces, and the #3061 famously worn by Steve McQueen in “Bullitt.” The Type 3X breaks from that pattern entirely, built from scratch rather than pulled from an old catalog page.
The look here is decidedly NOT retro, with a black composite carbon and titanium case and an aluminum inner ring, all coming in at 42mm wide. A single-domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating covers the dial, which uses Old Radium Super-LumiNova on the markers and hands for legibility. They’ve also got two color schemes: a khaki/sandy brown, and the genuinely unusual green.
The whole thing runs on a Swiss ETA 2893 automatic movement with a 42-hour power reserve rated to 660 feet of water resistance. It ships on a black Velcro fabric strap with an additional black rubber strap included.
Designing a tool watch? Ask the operators
BENRUS says the Type 3X came together around a table with former Tier One operators, the kind of people who’ve actually depended on a military watch working correctly in conditions where failure isn’t an option. That’s a different starting point than most tool-watch marketing, which usually borrows military language after the design is already finished.
Whether or not that process shows up in the final product is something only time and actual use will answer, but the instinct behind it makes sense for a brand whose whole reputation was built on real military contracts rather than tool-watch styling.
It’s also just an exciting move for a brand with a lot of history. Hopefully their design team will be able to thread the needle going forward and deliver some retro-inspired pieces that can play in the modern market.
Where to buy it
The BENRUS Type 3X is available now at benrus.com, priced at $2,950.
