Reviews - PTW clones( DTW A&K etc)

As everyone knows using a TW gets you the girls, other men envy you, pregnant woman go into labour in your presence and you could have joined a leet SF unit but your dear old mum has a bad back and you couldn't leave her to fend for herself whilst you traveled the world killing bad guys.

One of the downsides of the TW platform, up to this date, has been the high price. The original PTW is over £1100, the CTW is in the £600-£800 quid range and this is just for a standard model. When you want to make it unique with your own different rails, grip, etc then the price soon rises even more.

There has been rumours for a while about a Far East built TW and a company called G&D have now started selling a TW platform for around the £200 mark. Add postage and UK custom fees and it comes in at around £300. (seriously HM government did you really need to charge me £58 quid to allow it onto these fair shores?).

I'm going to do this review in two parts:

Part 1 will be how it looks, fires, mag compatibility and build quality

Part 2 will be compatibility with the other TW platforms.

So let's get some pictures chucked in here as I know everyone loves pictures.

this is what you get when you open the plain brown box with a simple label attached. The only other thing in the box is a unjammer/mag loader thingy. The unjammer is probably the most funky coloured one I have seen, The picture below doesn't really do the colour justice. Let's just say that if you drop it you won't have much trouble finding it from 50 meters away.

It would have been nice to have a allen key/hop adjuster, manual and instructions in the box but sadly there isn't. So if you need to adjust the hop then you will need a systema one or a allen key the right size.

Build quality:

it's really well put together, nothing loose, rattling or hanging off. All the parts a painted in a nice matt black paint which seems good.

Flash hider - steel -14mm flash hider held on with a 1.5mm allen grub (actually 5/64's but a 1.5mm will work). Being -14mm it allows you to stick on whatever AEG flash hider you have in mind.

Outer barrel - Aluminum one piece outer barrel. The style is M4 unlike most TW's which come with a M4A1 style barrel. Well made and rock solid into the upper receiver.

receiver furniture - mostly cast from a non magnetic metal apart from the dust cover, flash hider and receiver pins.

Fore grips - young gifted and black...sorry got that tune stuck in my head. They are black plastic and look like AEG hand guards and not like TW hand guards. nothing wrong with them and i think most people will probably chuck them for some sort of RIS rail.

Front sight - well made, fits well and looks to be made of aluminum.

delta ring - outer is aluminum and the spring and C clip are steel.

Pistol grip - black plastic and again remind me of an AEG pistol grip. It is TW spec and will only fit on a TW platform so AEG grip won't fit.

Upper and lower receiver - These seem well cast and the trades are nicely done. Added to the fact that they are more realistic than the PTW and CTW is a bonus and you don't have to buy a more accurate receiver to get rid of the PTW/CTW trades. There is a very small bit of play between the upper and lower but not really noticeable. If it annoys the buggery out of you then a Magic pin will be your friend.

Stock pipe - solid, black and not TW spec. PTW stocks won't fit, AEG stocks fit but have a little play. (EDIT - PTW stocks will fit but are really tight)

Stock - I've left the stock to last as it's good and bad. It fits solidly onto the stock pipe and has no play at all. Slides nice and smooth and is finished in a nice black plastic colour. Again it reminds me of a AEG stock but it's not the best design for me.

As you can see in the picture below the stock comes apart in 3 pieces. fitting a battery is possible but not the easiest thing in the world. If you have a crane stock battery then it's probably fine (i'll check out the inner diameter to see if a crane stock battery fits). Fitting a LIPO involved removing the stock, putting the LIPO into the stock pipe, fitting the stock over the battery, fitting the Tamiya connectors and LIPO balance plug down the sides of the crane stock, fitting the stock wedge back on and then putting the butt pad back on.

This normally wouldn't be a problem as I would just swap to a different type of stock but the stock pipe isn't MIL spec or AEG spec and lives somewhere in between. A PTW/CTW stock won't fit the stock pipe and an AEG stock will fit but with a bit of play. Normally a bit of black electrical tape on the stock pipe would sort this bit I'd need quite a bit of tape to sort out the wobble. The only stock that seemed to fit well was a G&P L119A1 style stock.

Here's a few more pictures of the TW.

I'm not going to strip the cylinder and hop yet (later tonight). This is just a quick look at the cylinder, hop and barrel and the externals of the gearbox.

The Cylinder is blue anodised and well built. Actually really well built. I'm liking it a lot and until I take it to bits and find it full or problems then I'm saying that it's a good cylinder. The nozzle has very little play, very much like a PTW cylinder, and fires consistently (more on this a little later).

The Hop unit and inner barrel is a mixed bag to be honest but the important thing is that it works. The inner barrel is brass and has the same taper inside the barrel as a Systema 2012 barrel which is a nice feature. The hop unit looks a bit roughly cast as you can see in the pictures but as I just said it works so I can't really complain about how rough the outer casting looks.

The gearbox looks to be of good quality and sounds and fires fine. I'll take it apart later to have a look inside to see if it's full of monkey metal and spiders. I did notice that one of the gearbox screws was missing from mine but it hasn't effected performance in the slightest. I'll pop one in there just to be on the safe side.

Ok that's it for build quality. My opinion is that it's a well put together TW with a few minor gripes (annoying stock and missing screw). It very much reminds me of an AEG. What I mean by that is the build and feel reminds me of a G&P or TM SOPMOD M4 and doesn't have the same feel as a PTW. This isn't a negative point just an observation. It can be forgiven if it actually works like a TW...........

Ok on with the firing.

fitted a LIPO 11.1V 1100Mah battery into the stock, Split the upper and lower to check the gearbox was aligned, loaded the supplied DTW magazine with 110 blaster .2g bb's, inserted the mag, pressed the bolt release, switched it to semi and pulled the trigger.......success!

every round fired in semi and auto bursts and the TW stopped when the mag was empty.

loaded the mag again and switched on the Chrono:

381

385

387

383

386

387

393

382

385

386

Average 385.5 FPS. I told you the cylinder was a good yin!

Next I adjusted the hop to give the TW some hop effect. This dropped the FPS to an average of 355 FPS. I don't have the ability to test out the range or how good it was hopping but i'll test this out over the next day or 2. I also want to have a look at the hop to see what's being used to hop the BB. If needed I will mod the hop with a bit of super glue and a larger rubber.

So after success with the supplied mag and I stripped the mag to have a look at it as well. It seems to be a copy of the Systema magazine and the only problem on mine is the base plate is a bit loose. by bending the 4 tabs that hold it in place will sort this out. The mag feels like a VANARAS one and is quite lightweight. Here's a picture of the mag inners:

I like the pins that DTW have used to keep the inner inside the outer. Systema use roll pins which I'm not a big fan of and DTW use locking pins which are easier to remove and seem to do a really good job.

next up was a magazine compatibility test. I have 4 different mag types here and I tried all 4.

the results are as follows:

DTW - works

Systema Shell with Vanaras inner - works and is slightly tight in the magwell

RAMPO Pmag shell with Systema inners (LW) - works

Celcius - works but very tight in the magwell and a drop of 10 FPS.

I used 110 blaster 0.2g bb's in the test and all the mags fed flawlessly.

Ok that's it for now next up will be Part 2 but before I go I'm going to say right now that for the price this is a very good TW. I might change my mind when I open the gearbox and find the gears are made of cheese but right now I think this is a very good, well made, cheap TW.

I'm going to split part 2 into 2 parts. I will have a look at the electrics and gearbox tomorrow and tonight I have had a look at the motor, hop unit and cylinder.

first thing first the cocking handle isn't compatible with the other TW's. The DTW one is heavier, missing the wings and a little bit longer than the other TW ones. I can see that they saved a bit of cost by removing the wings as this saves machining inside the upper receiver. The PTW/CTW cocking handles don't fit inside the DTW upper as the DTW upper doesn't have the gap machined for the wings.

It's not the end of the world if you loose or snap the DTW one as you can use a PTW/CTW one if you cut the wings off.

Moving onto the hop unit and inner barrel. I have used the PTW naming convention on the picture below so if you are reading this and get confused about which part is which then just check out the photo.

A PTW hop unit won't fit inside the DTW. A MDD and CTW hop unit will with a bit of brute force. The reason for this is because the DTW outer barrel has a 22mm cut out for the hop chamber base. the DTW hop chamber base is 22mm, the CTW is 22.2mm and the PTW is 22.5mm. What this means is that if you want to use a PTW hop unit then you will need to swap the outer barrel for a systema one.

If you look at the picture below you can't really tell there is much difference between the hop chamber bases but after measuring them it turns out there is.

The inner barrel diameter is 8mm whereas a PTW/VANARAS/CTW inner barrel diameter is 10mm. This means that the chamber sleeve and inner barrel is unique to the DTW barrel.

the Hop adjuster, roller packing and fit pin are not PTW compatible. This is because the square inner barrel cut which houses the hop adjuster is quite rough and the hop adjuster is slightly larger than a PTW hop adjuster.

I don't know if it's easy to spot in the picture but the hop adjuster on the left is slightly larger.

to clear this part up slightly I will list the hop and barrel parts and say if they are PTW compatible or not.

Hop chamber base - not compatible as the PTW one is too thick

Chamber sleeve - not compatible as the DTW inner barrel is 8mm in diameter

hop adjuster - not compatible

roller packing - more on this below

fit pin - possibly

Inner barrel - the inner barrel along with the complete DTW hop unit does fit inside a PTW.

chamber packing - compatible

chamber packing base - compatible

air seal packing - compatible

adjuster cushion - compatible but looks like a AEG hop up bucking to be honest. It sits side on between the inner barrel and hop adjuster.

barrel key - compatible

If you really don't want to use the DTW hop unit and inner barrel then the best thing to do is replace the outer barrel with a Systema/Celcius/Vanaras one and then the Systema hop unit will fit no problem.

you might have noticed that the roller packing is really thin, even compared to the older PTW roller packing. Once I get a chance to test the hop effect and range I will decide if this needs replacing with a thicker bit of rubber.

I'll also add here that it's not all bad as the DTW hop unit works quite well. The airseal is good and hopefully if there is a problem with the hop effect then replacing the roller packing will sort it out.

Moving on to the cylinder we have some good news. The DTW cylinder is 100% PTW compatible and very well made. All the threads are a match and all the parts are interchangable. the DTW piston is slightly tight on the PTW cylinder sleeve but will loosen up with use.

The only issue I had was my piston head guide was slightly loose and had to be tightened up before it popped off and buggered the cylinder. (if you buy one of these it's worth checking that it's tight).

I popped a PTW cylinder into the DTW, using the DTW hop unit, and fired a couple of mags with no problems. The FPS was constant and the gearbox handled the M110 cylinder with no problems at all. It might be worth mentioning here that a PTW cylinder will set you back £170 whereas if you buy the DTW just for the cylinder you would end up with a whole TW spare for just £30 quid more!!

Lastly tonight I had a quick look at the motor. I'll be honest it's been a while since I buggered about with magnets, E and M fields and all that 3 finger mumbo jumbo. all I can tell is that the motor seems to be good enough to handle the 385 FPS DTW cylinder with no problem. The trigger responce is as sharp as a PTW. after firing around 1500 bb's now the gearbox still sounds fresh, the motor doesn't seem to labour and rapid fire single shots work everytime.

conclusions for tonight are:

The DTW is a very good TW. D&G have cut corners to save costs but so far the cuts haven't stopped the DTW from performing well. It's not 100% completely PTW compatible but this is only an issue if you want to put Systema parts into the DTW and even then it's still possible to do but you need to add a few more Systema parts.

I'll finish off tonight by saying the the DTW has a real "pick me up and shoot me" feel. As I have been mucking about today stripping it, trying differnet parts etc everytime I have rebuilt it I've ended up firing a couple of mags through it just for fun.

I had a look at the gearbox and electrics today. Some good news and some bad news but to keep you in suspense I'll put the bad news nearer the bottom. No sneak peeking!

when I stripped the gearbox out of the lower receiver I noticed that I wasn't missing a screw in the gearbox, as seen in the pictures earlier in the review, I'm actually missing 2 screws. Top tip if you buy one of these is to check that the gearbox is actually screwed to the lower receiver.
Another cost saving cut by D&G has been to swap the selector rack gear with a plastic one and not a metal one that you would find in a CTW/PTW. The CTW/PTW ones do fit and I imagine that the plastic one will wear down eventually. The plastic is actually quite strong and should last a while as it's not really under any real load.

I've put a PTW metal one next to the plastic one for comparison.

The selector and all the little bits that hold it in place are a direct copy of the PTW one. As you can see in the photo it uses a spring, ball bearing and grub screw just like the PTW. The CTW is similar but doesn't use the ball bearing and uses a wierd little thing instead.


Strangely the bolt release differs from the PTW/CTW platform. The DTW has an extra part which can be seen in the photo below. I think this extra part is to help with the micro switch on top of the ECU being engaged when you press the bolt release.


The gearbox has now fired around 2000 bb's and hopefully the pictures below will show how little wear, if any, there is on the moving parts in the gearbox.


The gears are all steel and for those that are interested the sun gear is 2 piece but seems really good quality. In fact the whole gearbox is good quality and the gearbox casing is cast from a non magnetic material. There is no wear on the gearbox sides which suggests that the shimming is spot on. The gears move freely when the gearbox is removed and there is very little lubrication inside the gearbox which is a good thing.


So that's it for the gearbox. It seems well made, no noticeable wear, Systema compatible and all round good egg. It's time to look at the electrics.......

Removing the Mosfet from the stock uncovers the longest wires ever! It looks like D&G are using one wiring loom for all models. So if you get an M4 model you will end up with quite a bit of extra wiring stuck inside the stock tube.

If you are going to use a lipo in the stock tube then a bit of tidying of the wires would be recommended. If you want you could chop some of the wiring back and replace the 4 wire control cable with a Systema m4 length one.
The ECU looks very similar to the Systema 2008 model and you can see the 2 types in the picture below.



The other circuit board in the DTW is the selector switch board which is attached to the side of the gearbox. This board is used to select between semi and auto. I haven't taken a picture of it as I couldn't be bothered as it's tiny and I actually forgot!

Ok on to the bad news.....
The Mosfet and ECU aren't compatible with the PTW. If you use the Systema ECU with the DTW Mosfet this is the result.


After the smoke had cleared I though "I know I'll stick a Etiny Mosfet in and bob's your uncle". Sadly Bob wasn't your uncle as it refused to work. I then tried a Systema Mosfet and again this didn't work. When you use the DTW ECU and another type of Mosfet when you connect the battery the gears spin without the trigger being pulled and the after a few seconds the fuse pops. I thought it might be a polarisation problem but swapping the motor wires around didn't work either.

On the plus side the selector switch board is compatible with the PTW/CTW.
So if you break or burn out a board on the DTW then you have 2 options:

Option 1 - try to get a new DTW board (I'm currently working on this and will let you know how easy it is to get spare parts)
Option 2 - replace the Mosfet and ECU with another brand. My suggestion would be the Etiny Mosfet and ECU which will set you back £170

Just to clarify this wasn't the DTW breaking. This was me breaking the DTW.

For the techie type people out there what actually happened was one of the small logic chips burned out. I think it's called Y3 (printed on top of the chip) but can't see as it has melted away. The chip is called Q2 on the PCB. The PCB is manufactured by a Chinese company called JPQC and the board looks to be manufactured on ther 2010/06/03.

So that's pretty much the end of the review. Hopefully I will be able to get a new Mosfet from D&G and get it back up and running and if not I'll probably stick in a Etiny setup.
I did manage to have a bit of a play around with the hop and range today before I destroyed it and I think that adding a thicker rubber will help out as I had the hop turned out quite a bit (remember TW hops are *albartroth* about face) and I wasn't getting as much hop as I would expect. Until I get the new Mosfet I'm unable to test this theory out and hopefully someone else will pick up the challenge when they get their DTW.

My final conclusion:

is it worth the money? yes it's a cheap TW which can be seen in the AEG feel to it but it works well and is 90% compatible with other TW platforms. Mine has fired about 2000 BB's in this review before I blew it up (my fault not the DTW's) The gearbox shows no sign of wear and the cylinder is good quality which means that it should work for a long time. If you wanted to make it 100% PTW compatible then you would need to replace the following parts:

Outer barrel
Inner barrel
chamber sleeve
Hop Chamber base
hop adjuster
ECU
Mosfet
Bolt release

If you are new to the TW platform and decide to buy one of these then my advise would be to leave it alone. Don't replace anything as it's a very good TW out the box. I had pretty low expectations when I ordered this, along with probably quite a few other TW users, however I have been plesently surprised at just how good it is.

Now someone else go buy one and see if the hop needs sorting and how to sort it so that when I get mine back up and running it will save me the hassle!

Reviews by mightyjebus