Editorial policy

Independence

Commissions never set a score or decide a pick. No brand pays for placement, reviews or coverage, and we don't accept free products in exchange for coverage. If that ever changes for a specific item, the page will say so next to the product. How we make money is explained on the affiliate disclosure page. We do not link to other sites owned by our publisher, and no site in that network links here in exchange.

Sourcing

• Battery figures come from the maker's operation guide or battery table, with the usage assumptions that table states; lens, case and water-resistance claims come from the maker's specification page or press release, in the maker's own words.
• Every product's evidence table links to its sources, and every page lists them in a Sources section.
• Where a maker's retail page cannot be reached, we use its published manual or a specialist transcription of its announcement, and say which in the source list.
• Any number we can't source is left out. We would rather say "not stated" than guess.
• We never state a lifespan in years for a watch or its battery. No maker publishes one.
• We do not quote Amazon star ratings or review counts, and we do not publish testimonials. The site has none.

The full evidence hierarchy and scoring rubric are on How We Rate.

What "Researched" means

Every pick on this site is labeled "Researched." We read manuals, battery tables, spec pages and releases. We did not buy, wear, drop, freeze or submerge the product. We never describe a watch as something we handled or used unless we did exactly that, and then the page will describe what was done and for how long.

Military, hunting and safety topics

• Wear rules are the unit's, not ours. Pages about service, basic training and deployment say plainly that wireless and wearable rules vary by unit, facility and command, and tell the reader to ask. We never state a rule as universal.
• "What SEALs wear" pages report what makers and public sources say, and say when a watch is named for a unit by its maker rather than issued to it. We do not invent issue lists.
• Hunting and season content is about the watch only. Regulations, seasons and legal shooting hours are set by your state agency, and no page here substitutes for them.
• "Indestructible" and "unlimited" are always qualified. In our own words a watch is shock-resistant, and a battery is rated unlimited under the maker's stated solar conditions, which we print.

Corrections

If we get something wrong, we fix it and log the change in the page's "Corrections & updates" section with the date. Send corrections to mike@blackironathletics.com or through the contact form, with the page and the figure in question. We check it against the original source.

Updates

We re-check battery tables, specs and manuals quarterly and whenever a maker ships a successor, and warranty terms yearly. A page's "Updated" date changes only when its content changes, not when the site is rebuilt.

How pages are produced

Pages are researched and drafted with the help of AI writing tools, working from the sources linked on each page, and are published under the editorial control of Iron Mako Media. The tools don't add facts: every battery figure, material, rating and specification must trace to a cited source, and anything that can't be traced is removed.