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BACKGROUND:
Well I have had my CTW for over 3 months now and thought I would put up a review for my 2011 CTW MX-2. The CTW community is fairly small and there is very little information on them currently. Most of the topics about CTW’s are horror stories at best and are also not very helpful when looking to purchase one. In the past CTW has had issues (ECU, inner barrel and cylinders cracking) but from what I have seen so far and working with Hotspot Airsoft, they definitely listen to their customers and work to resolve any issues that may arise and implement improvements ASAP. The last shipment of CTW’s to the states had been delayed about a month because they had an issue with a small spring in the cylinder that provided pressure for the ball bearing lock that would fail occasionally under high FPS setups (500+). Most manufacturers wouldn’t address this problem and would wait till next model or revision to change this but CTW shut down production for a few weeks until better parts arrived. That speaks wonders to me.
As most of you know the CTW is a clone of the Systema PTW but at roughly $560 w/ discounts, it is drastically cheaper than the PTW which can run up to $1100-1500 and can be quite difficult to find in the US. Both can be hard to come by with the CTW’s, for the most part, being built to order. Most websites selling CTW’s in stock are older models that are usually returns or models that have not had major issues addressed. HSA is the only authorized dealer and repair center for CTW’s in the US and they receive freshly built CTW’s roughly every two weeks. Usually they require you to preorder your rifle because of demand. I pre-ordered my CTW 2/8 and received it 3/4 with the Chinese New Year also in that timeframe. I do not work for or represent HSA, just pointing out what retailer is carrying the most up to date product. Airsplat, Evike and AirsoftGI do carry some CTW’s once in awhile but they have never been 2011 MX-2’s even though advertised as so on occasion.
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS:
The box itself was really nice, good weight and stiffness to the corrugate with fantastic print quality, KISS (being a Packaging Engineer I find myself looking at things like this more often than most). The gun comes packaged in an EPS mold with the CTW in its respective cavity. Included are the gun, 120 round high speed magazine, speed loader, cleaning rod and CD Instruction Manual. Picking the gun up, man is this thing rock solid. I’ve never held a gun that never once creaked or felt cheap. The grip is noticeably skinnier at first and somewhat strange after using AEG’s for good time. After using my CTW for a week or two, AEG grips now feel bulky and awkward. This is definitely a training weapon and feels like the real deal. I have fired Roughneck’s PTW years ago so I had a general idea of what to expect when firing the CTW for the first time. The first thing I noticed was the trigger response. After firing the CTW and then firing my KWA, its night and day. I don’t know how we put up with the ½ second delay between trigger pull and shot (on AEG’s without extensive electrical upgrades), but after firing a CTW/PTW it’s quite annoying. Second thing I noticed was the report. Very crisp. The CTW just purrs when fired and full auto with the 11.1v LiPo it sounds like what I can only imagine a wet dream would sound like. I love it.
EXTERNALS:
The body color has a slight blue hue to it and is much more subtle than most pictures make it out to be. The Celcius trades to me are pretty <CENSORED>’ (it’s a dragon cmon’). There is a slight wobble between the receivers however. I have corrected for this though by adding a very thin bead of silicon along the top of the lower receiver. This solves two problems; it keeps dust and water out of the receiver and also stabilizes the two receivers without increasing the gap and misaligning the gears. The polished stainless steel buffer tube is a nice addition and looks very nice and is a great addition to a high end weapon. The crane stock has a nice build quality to it with the felt pads and is slightly smaller towards the bottom side of the buffer tube in order to have a really snug fit. Zero wobble at all. No need to add unsightly tape the buffer tube here. The rubber butt pad on the stock is soft and has a good grip to it making shouldering the weapon a welcomed occurrence.
The outer barrel is a dark grey color along with the flash hider and front triangle sight. The flash hider came with cheap orange paint on it and a dip in an acetone bath literally melted the orange paint away in seconds. All have extremely high build quality (aside from what looks to be a small amount of flashing from the mold on the inside of the front post) and have been fairly resistant to scratches thus far. The hand guards are definitely not your everyday plastic. They feel great to the touch and are probably a nylon fiber hybrid polymer.
The only issues with the externals that I noticed were that the bolt release could use a stiffer string, a functioning charging handle would be nicer (the only function to me so far is to aid in pulling out the cylinder) and my magazine release was fairly stiff but worked in after a few depressions.
INTERNALS:
The internals are a clone of the PTW system replicating the lower gearbox and a separate, interchangeable cylinder. The cylinder is where the CTW excels when compared to the PTW. With the new MX2 model, the PTW cylinder no longer works in a CTW or vice versa. The new CTW cylinder is slightly larger in diameter and is also designed to be easier to disassemble. With this design it is easier to disassemble the cylinder unit to make repairs, shim the spring or change out the spring entirely for a weaker/stiffer spring. With PTW’s you would normally have to buy a whole new cylinder which can be very expensive ($150+). With the CTW cylinder, it is much like many quick change spring designs found in many AEG brands. You can purchase various CTW springs for around $5-20 and have them swapped out in no time. Obviously this is not nearly as fast as swapping out a whole cylinder, but it is definitely a lot easier to your feet wet with different spring arrangements.
The ECU is a new design and feature thicker gauge wiring to handle the minimum required 11.1v LiPo battery. A blue light illuminates to let you know that the weapon is armed and ready to fire when in the semi and full auto firing positions. Sensors in the ECU detect when the last round has been fired from the magazine which requires you to press the bolt release before resuming fire with the next magazine. The ECU can be swapped out for a 3RB ECU if desired that will replace the full-auto function. The wires from the ECU run along the inside of the lower receiver into the buffer tube. I suggest wrapping these wires in electrical tape or another piece of tubing as the coating is fairly weak and can rub/wear over time and cause a short that can fry your ECU/MOSFET/fuse. The fuse and the MOSFET are enclosed in the buffer tube with an aluminum heat sink. The wires from the MOSFET are wrapped together in a coil with a large style Tamiya connector attached to the end. The coil of wiring is around 3” compressed which unmodified does not allow you to collapse the crane stock full when the battery is installed. The wire can be shortened however in order to fit a buffer tube LiPo.
The barrel is a 6.00mm stainless steel crowned and ported barrel. So far this barrel has been extremely accurate and precise even before the hop-up break in period has passed. The ported barrel helps to reduce turbulence at the end of the barrel when firing on full-auto that most other barrels suffer from. The hop up is a similar design to the PTW hop up which is generally recognized as a pretty terrible design. The CTW hop up is adjustable from the magwell with the magazine removed and adjusted with an Allen wrench. This allows you to precisely tune your hop up and once dialed in, works pretty good so far, definitely nothing to write home about though.
FIELD EXPERIENCE:
I have used my CTW at two large OPS here in Illinois in March. Both times my CTW performed flawlessly and I have been very impressed with it so far. On both occasions it was around 30-40 degrees and the second event rained almost the entire duration. FPS was fairly constant at 408 fps and roughly 23 rps with the 11.1 v 2400 mAH crane LiPo. Both events the Celcius LiPo lasted me all day in the cold weather on over 2500+ shots. The second event rained all day and I punished the CTW with mud and water all day and never had a single hiccup. It is definitely very rewarding to know you can outrange 99% of the guns on the field and pick people off at close to 70 yards away. The increased trigger speed is definitely noticeable when popping off quick rounds and the CTW can fire around 3 semi rounds in the time it takes my KWA to fire off one round, pretty cool. This kind of accuracy definitely makes it worth having a 4X optic that is dialed in and using it for its intended purpose, not just using it to spot and identify targets.
The slimmer grip is something that takes time getting used to, but in the long run is definitely more comfortable. At this point however, I have switched out the pistol grip for a modified RS MOE grip that is a little bit wider, but definitely still thinner than the average AEG pistol grip. This is accomplished by hallowing out a RS or GBBR Magpul MOE grip. With a Dremel and a ¾” drill bit it took me one night to finish. It is definitely a trial and error process but it’s worth it. There are several ways you can attach the new grip, with or without screws. At first I used a plate of aluminum screwed to the motor mount which was compressed between the back of the grip and the bottom MOE plate. This way gave it the “screw-less” look but had a slight give to it which I was just not comfortable with. I ended up mounting the grip like the OEM grip, and so far it has been very secure.
I have noticed that sometimes my optical sensor will get blocked or dusty and will not illuminate the blue light when switching from safe-semi-auto. I am not entirely sure what the cause of this is just yet, but it is always resolved with opening the upper receiver and cycling the gears a few times. It could be the sensor not recognizing the two holes in the sector gear or that they collected some grease.
I have only had one BB jam to date. I have so far only used KSC .30g BB’s and TSD .23g BB’s. Both have worked fine so far without feeding issue or major jamming issues. I will be testing some .28g Bioval BB’s and some .25g tracer rounds to see how they perform also.
MAGAZINES:
The metal STANAG 120 round magazine that the CTW came with is quite heavy when first picked up, the weight mimicking a fully loaded RS magazine. The spring was very stiff but once worked in fed easily. I have had mixed performance with the stock magazine as the spring is extremely stiff to feed high ROF with heavy BB’s. Occasionally I have chopped a round or two with this mag, but all fragments are cleared out after a couple semi shots. The CTW mags are quite expensive however at roughly $40 a piece.
I have had much better experience with the Vanaras PMAG-style magazines from RSOV so far. They are much lighter (I’m all for realism but my gear weighs enough already) and have a pretty cool look to them. Personally, I think they are much more ergonomic than PMAG’s too. PMAG ranger plates with work with the Vanaras mags as well, which include two separate tabs to accept both the stock plate and a Ranger Plate. Also included are plastic sticky tabs that can be stuck to both the top and bottom of the magazine to help you identify what ammunition you have loaded. I use this to help me know which mags are loaded with stealth BB’s and which are normal without having to pull the magazine out of the pouch. It’s definitely a pretty nifty and useful gimmick. The internal core removes from the outer shell like the regular PTW magazines (If you have a broken PTW magazine, I recommend purchasing a Vanaras internal, only around $10). The best feature by fare though is the ability to change how many rounds can be held within the magazine. A small pin is included which can be inserted within one of 4 spots or not at all. This allows you to choose whether or not you want to have mags that hold 30/60/90/120 rounds. Definitely a very cool idea.
So far, all of the Vanaras magazines have performed flawlessly. They consistently feed much better than my CTW magazine. I paid ~ $180 shipped for 10 magazines shipped from HK. Crazy right? That’s $18 per magazine compared to most that run anywhere from $40-50 or are cheap plastic weird looking styled magazines. In the end, they are a great deal and by far the best investment I have made for my CTW so far. Metal STANAG versions are available too for a couple of bucks more.
CONCLUSIONS:
I have never been happier about an airsoft purchase before. Owning a CTW/PTW is unlike owning any other AEG. There is definitely more work, care and maintenance involved, but in the end it is totally worth it. At half the cost of a PTW, it is easier to stomach the cost for the average player. In the end, to be field skirmishable, I spent around $825 for the gun, 11 magazines and the LiPo battery and charger. To me, this is definitely worth it. If something does break or fail in the meantime, you have a lot of ground to catch up with the initial cost of a PTW and you are also able to use PTW parts as replacements on most items. I think it is a good thing to have another PTW company on the market in order to help drive innovation and lower costs to the consumer in the end as well. Competition is always better for the consumer than a monopoly. I have zero hesitations recommending someone to purchase one, whether they have owned a PTW previously or they are looking at training weapons for the first time. The trigger response and realism, along with performance make the CTW/PTW better than any other AEG by far. Of course, you can spend around the same amount of money to pimp out an AEG and get roughly the same performance, but it still will not be as consistent or valuable as a CTW/PTW. Please let me know if you have any questions as I will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge.
