ICS M97 AEG Tactical Carbine Review

After many years of development, ICS finally introduced their line of AEG Tactical Carbine series at beginning of this year. During the developmental period, we had heard rumors of many new features of this mystery airsoft gun. Ranging from 3 round burst, split gearbox, full metal body, higher capacity magazine and so on. Now, some of the rumors have come true in this new airsoft AEG Tactical Carbine. Many people had argued that ICS copied Systema's M16 series' two piece gearbox design, but that is totally false. ICS had this idea at the very beginning of their developmental period. And, because of new gearbox revolutionary design, this airsoft gun's release date was delayed many times. We first break the ICS AEG Tactical Carbine news back in May 2003 with numbers of prototype pictures on this airsoft gun and it still took them almost 8 months to come out with the first production batch. All that has shown ICS had put many efforts and time into making this ICS AEG Tactical Carbine a master piece.

ICS has two authorized importers in the U.S.: Specialized Distribution and Airsoft Elite .

Specialized Distribution version comes with Authorized Trade Mark of Olympic Arms .

Airsoft Elite version comes with I.C.S. trade mark:

Now, lets talk about the internal design that everyone has been talking about!

The pictures on the left are the new ICS "TWO" piece gearbox design. The picture on the right is the newly design Classic Army quick take down system. As you can see, even with the new take down metal body by Classic Army, you still can not change out the spring without taking apart most of the gun. In the Pre-ICS M16 Tactical Carbine era, it will take up to 30 to 40 minutes to either apply lubrication or change out the spring. Especially for people that never open up a gearbox. ICS's two piece gearbox will allow you to apply lubrication to your internal within "5" seconds.

Another advantage for this two piece gearbox is: it will allow you to switch your fps by simply switching your upper gearbox unit!!!

If you wish to change your fps according with the battle situation, all you have to do is pop out the back receiver pin and slide out your upper gearbox unit, then insert another upper gearbox in with different set of spring!! Again, it will only take fewer than "5" seconds to switch out the upper gearbox unit. Can you imagine doing that with your Tokyo Marui or Classic Army AEGTactical Carbine series? You will be lucky to change out the spring in less than 20 minutes with the traditional one piece gearbox. This gearbox design will not only save you money on not having to purchase different airsoft gun for different situation, it makes the maintenance of the internal very easy. The Complete upper gearbox with M120 spring is available at Airsoft GI!!

The parts inside of the gearbox were almost the same as the ICS Mp5s. Below is the list:

• Nozzle

• Cylinder head

• Cylinder

• Nylon piston

• Nylon piston head

• Tappet Plate

• Gear Set

• ICS Turbo 2000 motor

The parts that are unique:

• Hop up unit

• Upper Gearbox

• Lower Gearbox with locking device

• Anti-Reversal

From this list, you can see most of the parts are interchangeable with either Tokyo Marui original parts or after market upgrade parts. This certainly make this gun not only unique but still compatible with most of the parts that are already available.

Beside the two piece gearbox design, another new design that was applied to the AEG is the spring tension release button. This spring tension release system also featured in TM Famas and the TM PSG-1, but it is the first in a AEG Tactical Carbine style airsoft gun. The spring tension release button is located at the forward assist button; unlike the TM or CA, the forward assist button is purely cosmetic.

Why do you need to release the tension? Most of the airsofters know that the spring will not go back to the released position after firing; which means the piston will not go back to the original position. The spring will lose its tension if the spring did not release back to released position, in another word, less tension = lower FPS.

The best way to utilize the spring tension release button is to shoot couple rounds of semi without the magazine, then press the spring tension release button. This is very critical if your spring was upgraded (if you just press the tension release button without shooting couple rounds of semi, you might damage your piston unit or the anti-reversal latch).

There is another new feature for this ICS AEG Tactical Carbine. The hop up unit is different than any other AEG Tactical Carbine style a.e.g.s. The hop up was not easy to adjust on the older design. ICS' one piece hop up corrected that problem by switching to the G3 style hop up dial system.

You might find the new hop up unit hard to turn the dial at first, but after several usage, it will loosen by itself.

Other new designs are:

The Charging Handle and the Bolt (cosmetic cover)

Some of you will find this a great job by the ICS to pay attention to small details. The TM or the CA has the bolt separate from the charging handle, and that makes it hard to put the unit back after you take apart the gun. Now, all you have to do is to connect the charging handle to the charging spring and you are set.

The Bolt Stop

This unit will not only hold the wires in place for the AEG Tactical Carbine, it also make the bolt stop from falling out after you take apart the gun (Unlike TM or CA).

Reinforced Outer Barrel

This reinforced outer barrel will still enable you to fit battery up to 9.6v 1700mah nun-chuck battery in the front handgrip without any modification.

LE Tactical Stock

The ICS AEG Tactical Carbine features a six adjustable positions telescope stock. You can adjust the stock to your best liking.

Performance:

We have several ICS AEG Tactical Carbine as field testing gun. We will break it down to four categories: durability, F.P.S.and acceptability.

Durability:

We had two ICS AEG Tactical Carbine full stock version as rentals, they preformed very well the first time out. We were quite scared that it might quit on our customers (newbies too), but the guns survived. The gun feeds well even in the very tough area (lots of dust) we were playing at. Since we were testing out these new babies, we told the customers to just do things that they normally will not do to their own equipment. During the games, they were doing full auto and did not even let go the trigger till it emptied the magazine(450 rounder). The guns did not fail even under such gruesome condition!!

Lets fast forward to the third time we took out the rentals to the games, since again nothing happened in the second usage as rentals. One of the gun that had the upper gearbox upgraded to M120 spring failed. No, it is not the tappet plate broken. It was the anti-reversal. Apparently our customer was fooling with the spring tension release button even when it was not necessary to press the button. So, it was a human error to cause this failure. We also found out from ICS's owner, that if the spring is upgraded. You will need to dry fire several rounds of semi-auto then press the spring tension release button.

From our own experience, the ICS AEG Tactical Carbine is just as durable as other brands right out of the box. Even with one of the rental broken, we still think ICS AEG is better than the first few batches of Classic Army M15 Tactical Carbine(few years ago).

Note: There is another issue that we found. The retractable stock tend to get lose at connection with the main body frame. That is because, since it has the two piece gearbox design; the screw did not go all the way and secured at the back of the gearbox (like the TM or CA design). You will have to check up on it and tighten it when it comes lose.

F.P.S. (Feet Per Second):

Here is the data we collected from the rentals:

Stock Gun:

Airsoft Elite 0.2G bbs
AVG: 287 FPS
Airsoft Elite 0.25G bbs
AVG: 256 FPS

With the M120 upgrade with full cylinder, the results:

Airsoft Elite 0.2G bbs
AVG: 379 FPS
Airsoft Elite 0.25G bbs
AVG: 358 FPS

Acceptability:

At this section, we are going to show you the test results of ICS AEG Tactical Carbine with different brand of M16 magazines

Airsoft Elite: It feeds well

G&P M16 series magazines (include 90 rounder, 130 thermold magazine, regular 130 rounder): You might need to hit the magazine into the magazine well, it is very tight fit. After that, it feeds great!!

ICS: The original ICS 450 round magazine feeds very well. It is by far better than their Mp5 magazines. The ICS 450 round magazine can only work with TM original body M16 Tactical Carbine and the ICS M16 Tactical Carbine series. It might not work well with other brands of Full Metal M4 bodies (including Classic Army M15A4).

Overall Grade: 9.1

• Performance: 9(stock gun)

• Accuracy: 9(stock gun)

• ROF: 10(stock gun)

• Acceptability: 9

• Potential: 10

• Look: 8 ( It looks a bit weird on the main body frame, due to the gearbox design. The front hand guard is a bit plastic and shinning. The magazine is a bit long)