Unboxing (2023)
2 Years later (2025)
ICS has a lot of modern style rifles in their collection. Although we can’t forget the WW2 beauties that they have to offer. When ICS asked me what rifle I wanted to try out, the M3 grease gun was the one that jumped in my mind immediately and I will tell you why and how I have been linking for the past years.
First, why the Grease gun, is being used from WW2 till 2000, for example in the gulf war and in some cases even up till 2009,
This means I can run this in multiple kits and as US soldier or a rebel/insurgency force fighting against it. There are tons of militaries that use the M3 or used it. Now note the version that ICS makes is the M3, that later got replaced for the m3a1 because of the breaking of the cocking handle when troops dropped it on the ground. The M3a1 has a cocking handle under the dust cover, that originally worked as the safety.
Not to go to much in detail about the history, but I think this is a very interesting part about why I chose the m3 to play with. A last little bit of facts is that this was made to replace the M1 Thompson and there was even an M2, but that didn’t saw the light because of the coming of the M3 that was a lot cheaper and faster to produce.
Now let’s hop over to the the ICS version.
This is a rifle that is from the older line of ICS but is holding up more than fine. I actually found this video of a review of an earlier model and back in the days, the box included a DVD with some information. It’s awesome that that video is 13 years old and today ICS is still using the same very well tested design. That’s a reason why I love ICS, they keep improving their rifles until they are as good as they will get. This Grease gun is no exception.
I’ve been running this grease gun for a few years now but because of the ‘full auto only’, I couldn’t use it on a lot of games. I noticed that with a 7,4V lipo, I can control the rate of fire well enough to use it as a single shot. But the games that I used it on, oh boy, it was a lot of fun. Fun because of how simple the design is and the little thinking you need to do about adding things to it… because you can’t.
As you can see on the outside, there are no rail systems, no attachments, no way to add a red dot, … well there is always duct tape. The outside is completely made out of metal, except this little plastic guard at the bottom. Because of tall the metal it really feels nice and there is no wobble at all. The wire frame stock completes the look and gives all the comfort of what you expect from a stock like this. The stock has 2 positions, in an out. Simple and easy.
On the top there are the iron sights, which are basic and I don’t really use them to aim. Between the iron sights you have the dust cover that in the real M3 acts as a safety. So if you shoot it, make sure it’s open, just for the looks. To open up the hop-up unit you crank the charging handle backwards and this also shows the safe position. Backward on this rifle is safe and you can’t use the trigger. To release it you press the button and it jumps forward. On mine after some use, it doesn’t jump forward anymore. But you still need to press that button to not break something on the inside.
The trigger and trigger guard is a bit interesting. I have small hands but even I can’t full grip the pistol-grip. I started using it with my middle finger instead of trigger finger, just because it’s more comfortable.
That’s about all the features on the outside. One thing I might do in the future, is adding a big suppressor to it, just because they look so cool and make this little rifle unnecessary long.
You might have noticed that there is not selector switch on the outside, that’s because this is full auto only. One of the reasons that I couldn’t use it as much. A lot of games here in Sweden are single shot games. But I noticed I can easily control the shots because of the 7,4v Lipo. So I will be bringing this to a few more games for sure.
The rate of fire is perfectly low and that’s how I like it. The real one had also a low rate of fire, so perfect.
Last thing on this is the biggest con and that’s the battery space. You will probably not have a battery that fits this small space. Luckily Lisa likes to use small rifles and she already ran in a problem like this and we have a 600mah 7,4 lipo and that fits perfectly in there. But that’s about all that you will be able to fit in there.
Internally this is very proprietary rifle with a special gearbox and parts so upgrading is not easy, but in my opinion also not necessary. It shoots good out of the box, as I’m used off from ICS.
In the box you find one hi cap magazine, which I don’t like. It works perfectly, I just don’t like hi caps. I invested in 5 low-caps, also from ICS and they work like a charm. They are full metal so you do carry around some weight in mags, which makes it even more fun to run this kit. A question I got was if the Sten or MP40 mags fit, no they don’t. You have to get the M3 mags.
Alright some numbers, I know I say, this little rifle but with the stock extended, this is 74cm or almost 60cm when the stock is in. Empty it’s about 2kg and with the mag inserted it goes at about 3,5 kg. So not that light or short after all. With the suppressor it will be even longer.
Performance, it shoots about 1 joule for mine. That’s how I like it for CQB, I did change the spring in it. It did shoot a bit more when I got it with the original spring. It has a consistent output and a decent range for it’s size and power.
It’s one of those rifles that I just love to use because you use it. It’s probably not for everyone but you should have one in your collection anyway. Running with this is something special. It’s difficult to explain, you just have to do it.
I hope ICS keeps making WW2 rifles or just rifles that are different than another AK or M4 because they do an amazing job on that.