MHW Bomber F74 Navigator: From Mediocre to Exceptional

The MHW Bomber F74 Navigator nearly ended up in my “disappointing grinders” pile. After 100 mediocre espresso shots from a machine with genuinely impressive specifications, I was ready to write it off entirely.

Then I stumbled onto something that challenged everything I thought I knew about variable RPM settings. One simple adjustment transformed this grinder from a frustrating puzzle into one of the most impressive all-around performers I’ve tested in years.

After pulling over 160 shots and brewing countless cups of filter coffee, I can say with confidence that the Navigator taught me more about the relationship between grinding speed and flavor than any grinder before it. This coffee grinder challenged my preconceptions and delivered surprising results.

About the brand

MHW-3Bomber is an enigmatic Chinese brand with a somewhat confusing identity.

The brand name is not only difficult to pronounce or interpret – even the company itself seems unsure about what it means.

At first, there was speculation online that “MHW” meant “Make Heart Warm,” and 3 was a reference to the three founders, but recently the company said that the acronym was short for “Maverick of High-end Workshop.” (sic)

The official story still doesn’t mention anything about the Bomber, though.

However, when I approached their booth staff at World of Coffee in Jakarta and asked about the brand name’s deeper meaning, I was met with blank stares and shrugged shoulders. Even their own representatives didn’t seem to have a clue.

But if we look past the cryptic identity, we find something more interesting. The military-inspired design might suggest form over function, but in reality, the brand makes serious coffee tools that are both inventive and for the most part well-made.

Design and Build Quality

By now, I’ve used MHW-3Bomber’s puck screens, baskets, tampers, and new water dispersion screen, and the quality-to-price ratio is excellent. They produce a huge range of coffee gear, but somehow it doesn’t seem like generic stuff where their logo is just slapped on. Even though most of it belongs in that lightweight accessory category, it seems intentional what they are doing.

I have also reviewed their Sniper grinder a few years ago, and was also relatively impressed with that one.

The first thought when unboxing this new grinder was: Wow, that’s a bold design. It looks better in real life than in photos.

You might see the cover image of this article and think it’s not that heavy since I’m holding it in one hand, but that’s a bit deceiving. I could only hold it steady like this briefly because it weighs an impressive 7 kilos. That’s a lot of weight packed into a relatively small form factor.

When something is compact, heavy, angular, and distinctly shaped like this, it really gives the impression of careful engineering. Nothing feels unnecessary or hollowed out. The design communicates a sense of precision, and intention. There aren’t any parts of finishes that feel cheap or flimsy. Everything seems built to last.

Visually and structurally, the Navigator reminds me of the Timemore Sculptor series, but where the Sculptor embraces a rounded elegance, the Navigator takes a different approach entirely.

Sharp corners, exposed bolts, and an industrial aesthetic give it an almost totalitarian presence on the counter.

If Mussolini was a home-barista (and a proponent of single dosing) I’m sure this would be his grinder of choice: Purposeful, masculine, and without unnecessary ornamentation. Like a grinder that can be relied on if (or when) World War 3 comes.

Practical Features and Usability

The Navigator addresses several pain points I’ve experienced with other grinders in the single dose niche.

The hopper design actually allows you to load beans without any popcorning issues or beans that might get stuck and not slide fully down into the grinding chamber.

A safety feature prevents operation when the hopper isn’t properly seated, but you can bypass that with a screwdriver if you want to take a closer look at the operation of the auger.

The magnetic catch cup is a nice touch – it slides smoothly underneath the chute. The magnet part is fully integrated in the cup, so you don’t have to worry that it will fall off after a while.

The RPM dial is positioned conveniently on the side rather than hidden on the back like the Sculptors.

However, MHW Bomber made one puzzling design choice. Instead of including a mechanical anti-static knocker similar to the one that makes the Timemore Sculptor so satisfying to use, they opted for a plasma generator. Unfortunately, this system doesn’t work perfectly, and there can be some grounds retained via static cling around the chute area. The chute is made of plastic, and the problem would probably be less pronounced if they’d used another material here.

What does work is a technique I’ve learned from my time with the Fellow Ode. By lifting the lid slightly with your thumb and pushing it down with a the middle and ring fingers, you create enough air pressure inside the grinder that it can help to expel the last 0.1 to 0.2 grams of coffee. You could say it works as a makeshift bellows.

The Three Grinding Modes

The Navigator offers three operational modes, though only one proves truly useful in practice.

• Auto mode stops the grinder once it detects no more coffee to grind.
• Auto-reverse mode adds the backwards burr spin of the burrs, which in theory would help to expel grounds, but in my tests have proved pretty useless compared to the thumb-lid technique.
• Manual mode requires you to stop the grinder yourself, but it actually includes a safety shutoff after one to two minutes, so in theory you could just let it run its course.

I recommend sticking with manual mode for the most control over your grinding process. Another benefit is that the manual mode will only beep once when you press the button to turn it off. On the two auto-modes you’re greeted with 3 obnoxious beeps each time. Unfortunately, these can’t be disabled.

Grinding noise?

The grinder is very quiet when running without beans. The motor the brand uses is excellent in this regard, and you might barely notice it’s on. However, once you load in beans, the sound profile changes significantly.

When measured with a decibelmeter about a foot away, the noise level reaches around 90 decibels. This puts it on par with some of the louder grinders in my collection. Still, it grinds very quickly. The act of grinding is finished almost immediately, and thanks to that, and the motor’s near-silent idle, I’d still consider it a pleasant grinder overall when it comes to sound.

Filter Coffee Performance

The Navigator’s filter coffee performance genuinely surprised me. To test its capabilities, I brought the grinder to a friend’s café and ran direct comparisons against the EK-43. His immediate reaction was telling: He looked a bit shocked, and said “Well, it’s almost up there.”

As the coffee cooled, subtle differences emerged. The EK-43 showed slightly more pronounced flavors with more character and intensity, while the F74 presented flavor notes slightly softer. I still wouldn’t call them blended. But the fact that the grinder impressed my friend — a guy who owns two coffee shop, and who has been in the business for over a decade — tells you that it will be good enough for the vast majority of home users.

Comparing the Navigator to other grinders in my collection, some grinders equipped with ultra filter-dedicated burrs like the ones from SSP might edge it out slightly in terms of clarity and focus.

DF83V with SSP BP burrs at 600 RPM is just more clean and balanced. But that’s a slightly unfair comparison because that would basically be the case against 99.9% of grinders out there.

SSP 64 mm UmV1 or Lebrew Filter in an auger fed grinder with RPM control is also a tad cleaner, with a longer and more transparent aftertaste. However, most home brewers, especially those working with light roasts and optimized water chemistry, will find the Navigator’s filter performance very satisfying.

The flavor presentation leans acidity-forward with good separation between notes, subtle but present body, and balanced sweetness. When you run the grinder at 800 RPM you get a bit of that glass-like transparency that SSP burrs are famous for. However, if you want a bit more sweetness and rounded flavors, you can just increase the RPM a bit. I found that already at 900 RPM the character started to change.

The Espresso Revelation

When it comes to espresso, this is where the story becomes interesting. And unusual.

After pulling more than 160 espresso shots with the Navigator, I experienced both profound disappointment and remarkable discovery.

I’m not going to mince my words here. Initially, the espresso performance left me unimpressed .

There’s often an inverse relationship between filter and espresso performance in grinders; excellence in one area frequently comes at the expense of the other.

Since the grinder was producing clean and clear filter at 800 RPM, I wanted to compensate for that by modulating the flavors with a high RPM for espresso. .

I tested 1400, 1500, even 1600 RPM, thinking increased RPM would generate more fines, add body, and create thicker shots. Throughout all this testing, the espresso remained disappointing. I’d extract the main flavor notes, but roughly 40% of each shot would taste detached with a weird mix of astringency, acidity and some kind of cloying flavors. Like the chemical stuff used in diet cokes back in the 90’s.

Then, somewhere in the middle of my testing process, not sure why, I tried running the grinder at 1000 RPM. The difference was absolutely mindblowing.

Initially, I didn’t believe the results. I thought perhaps my water had changed or some other variable had shifted. But after repeated testing, the evidence was undeniable: the flavor profile at 1000 RPM was dramatically superior to 1500 RPM.

At 1000 RPM, the espresso shots achieved that elusive balance between texture, body, and crowd-pleasing accessibility. Still with some complexity. If I had to compare it to something familiar, it reminded me of the SSP High Uniformity 64mm burrs; that nice mix of something traditional and comforting but with one leg in a more modern camp.

Fine-Tuning the RPM Sweet Spot

This discovery prompted more methodical testing to understand the RPM spectrum. At 1200 RPM, the astringency returned immediately, confirming that my initial finding wasn’t coincidental. At 1100 RPM, the astringency diminished but remained present.

• 1000 RPM: Excellent balance and integration
• 900 RPM: Even better balance, slightly more clinical character
• 800 RPM: Mild and fluffy with pleasant sweetness, but lacking intensity

There has previously been one school of thought that suggests RPM primarily affects grind size either finer or coarser, but not in terms of distribution. Other folks think slower grinding produces fewer fines, while faster grinding increases them. What I’ve discovered so far during my time testing dozens of grinder is that the reality is far more complex and complicated. It seems different burr sets, and different grinder designs each act in unique ways when it comes to changes in RPM.

My Recommended Settings

Based on extensive testing, I recommend running the F74 Navigator at 900-1000 RPM for espresso and 800-900 RPM for filter coffee. These settings will deliver excellent results for both brewing methods, making this one of the few grinders that can truly excel across such a wide range of applications. You might have fun trying other settings, for example, a turbo shot at 800 RPM can be delicious, but the pretty narrow range mentioned above, has consistently given me excellent results.

The grinder is impressively fast, and grind time doesn’t vary much across different RPM settings:

• At 1500 RPM (espresso range):
  An 18g dose takes about 6 seconds. That’s super fast!
• At 1000 RPM (espresso range):
  The same 18 dose is only slightly slower, around 8 seconds. But that’s still faster than most other grinders.
• At 800 RPM (filter coffee range):
  An 18g dose takes roughly 8 to 9 seconds, even at the slowest RPM.

So, regardless of whether you’re grinding at a higher or lower RPM, the speed remains relatively fast, probably due to the effective auger design and big burrs.

For that reason, I don’t see much benefit in choosing an RPM based on speed rather than flavor, because the time difference is minimal.

Calibration and Range

The grinder arrives calibrated quite coarsely out of the box, but adjustment is straightforward. Simply remove the magnetic dial indicator and recalibrate until you reach chirp. The grinding range is impressively wide; Turkish coffee should present no problems.

Most of my espresso settings have clustered around setting 2, and since I typically grind quite fine for espresso, this indicates that there’s still a lot of way left if anyone should want to go even finer. For filter coffee, I’ve been working around settings 7.5-9 at the coarser end of things.

Construction and Maintenance

The Navigator employs an auger-fed system similar to the Timemore 064 and 078 models. Everything feels substantial and well-engineered. The grinder opens relatively easily for burr chamber access, and retention inside the chamber remains remarkably low even after running more than 5 kilo through the grinder during my testing period.

The grinding chamber design reminds me of the Sculptors but proves slightly more accessible, requiring only four screws for removal. The included wooden brush deserves mention; it’s probably the best brush I’ve received with any grinder brand.

Overall retention averages 0.1-0.3 grams, and with the lid technique, it approaches zero. When switching from espresso to pour over, I still recommend grinding a few extra beans and using a brush underneath the chute, followed by the bellows lid technique to clear everything out.

The Burr Ecosystem Challenge

The 74mm burr size presents both an opportunity and a limitation.

When talking about surface area, it’s actually much larger compared to the 64 mm size – around 50% more cutting surface area.

MHW-3Bomber also claim in their marketing material that their burr size is bigger compared to the 83 mm size, which has become popular with the release of DF83V and Niche Duo. But according to my calculations that’s not the case. The surface area is actually a bit smaller, in spite of the the 83 mm versions bigger inner diameter.

The less common 74 mm size also means fewer upgrade options compared to more common dimensions like 64mm or 83mm. The famous Mythos grinder from Nuova Simonelli uses the same size, and those burrs would likely fit, though I haven’t tested this compatibility yet.

Currently, purchasing the Navigator locks you into a pretty limited burr ecosystem. You’ll probably need to appreciate the stock burr set since upgrade or swap options remain limited.

Value Proposition

Despite the burr ecosystem limitations, the Navigator delivers exceptional value. Like most MHW Bomber products, it overdelivers relative to its price point. The Timemore 064S has increased in price recently, bringing it into similar territory as the Navigator. With various potential discounts and differences across regions, it might be exactly the same price.

But with the Navigator, you get a larger motor, bigger burrs, and in my opinion, superior flavor output right out of the box. And that’s also pretty much the case if you compare it to the big brother, the 078s.

This is just my personal assessment, and there are also a few solid reasons for choosing the Timemore option, including aesthetics and wider burr compatibility.

Conclusion

The MHW Bomber F74 Navigator has taught me not to judge too quickly. During my first 100 shots, I dismissed this as just another mediocre espresso grinder. However, once I dialed in the optimal RPM settings, the grinder revealed its true potential.

This experience reinforced something important: RPM adjustments can dramatically impact cup quality far more than most people realize. Variable RPM isn’t just a novelty feature; it’s essential for maximizing performance from certain grinders and burr sets.