EMG x Daniel Defense DDMK18 Airsoft EBB AEG Rifle - ICS w/ S3 Electronic Trigger (Model: Tornado Grey / 400 FPS / Gun Only)

"Great gun out of the box! Awesome rate of fire, good gear box and motor... I did upgrade a few things, just cuz of my need to improve things I guess.. added prome 6.05 aircushon 300mm barrel, maxxpro hopup, flat hop bucking and nub, and the sp125 spring. Use .32bbs, I haven't shot a more accurate aeg in my life.

"I got this gun for Christmas and it is very good. It’s very high quality and has a very light trigger. The only bad thing is the handguard is a bit shaky

"No issues except the mag well are really tight and my mags don't click in every time but besides that, the gun is excellent definitely would recommend it.

"The moment when I saw that ICS and EMG were making a DD Mk18, I placed a pre-order on it without any hesitation. I pre-ordered the ICS DD Mk18 (FDE, 400fps).

The new ICS x EMG DD Mk18 AEG is no doubt a 5/5, but I have several reasons as to why I am giving the ICS DD Mk18 a 4/5. To start out, this is an amazing and beautiful airsoft gun to hold and to use out on the field. Externally, everything is well built and feels sturdy to handle any abuse thrown at it. The internal stock performance is absolutely stellar and the instantaneous trigger response is an awesome feature to have that ICS has finally nailed down with their latest version of the SSS mosfet.

Now for my reason as to why I gave the ICS DD Mk18 a 4/5. If you own any older ICS ebb M4 AEGs (MMR, MARS, Yak or Hera CQR), the upper receiver will not fit onto the ICS DD Mk18 lower receiver. However, the ICS DD Mk18 upper receiver will fit onto the older ICS ebb M4 AEGs lower receiver that I listed. I was disappointed when I found this out after trying to swap receivers with my other ICS AEGs. The new angled pistol grip will not fit perfectly onto the old ICS ebb M4 AEGs; there will be a small gap between the lower receiver and the pistol grip, and the rear body pin does not fully close when putting the entire gun together. Unlike the old ICS ebb M4 AEGs (MMR, MARS, Yak, Hera CQR), the receiver body pins on the ICS DD Mk18 does not retain itself when removed from the lower receiver.

So at this moment, I am currently only using the entire ICS DD Mk18 upper receiver group onto my ICS ebb MMR lower receiver since that is the only external part that is fully compatible and interchangeable with my ICS ebb parts. I am unable to use DD licensed lower receiver and the pistol grip. When I had placed my pre-order on Evike for the ICS DD Mk18, I was under the impression that the AEG was 100% interchangeable and fully compatible with all of my ICS ebb parts.

I definitely would not recommend the ICS DD Mk18 to any ICS owner that is looking to swap external parts interchangeably with their other older ICS AEGs, its too expensive to do that. I would recommend the ICS DD Mk18 for people who have the money and are looking to buy a DD Mk18 that has a solid stock performance and doesn't care for interchangeable compatibility with other ICS AEGs.

Pros:
- Wired to dean connectors
- SSS mosfet (latest version)
- Externals are very well constructed
- Master mods internals.

Cons:
- Weak ICS stock motor
- Frail stock electrical wiring
- Not 100% interchangeable with other ICS ebb AEGs (MMR, MARS, YAK, Hera CQR). Can't use the ICS DD Mk18 lower receiver, DD pistol grip.

"I always had a soft spot for the ics's, and while this one is no different, it came with some hiccups. For starters the gun wouldn't shoot more than half a joule or so, the mainspring was defective oddly enough. The inner barrel also didn't have one of those centering rings so it was very loose in the hopup chamber. The tension spring on the hop chamber also didn't seem to be doing anything. Replace this with orings(you should be doing this anyway). The shimjob was notably very good. The stock ics motors are not neodymium and leave much to be desired. The SSS mosfet seems to work, although I've read that they don't care for 11.1's- mileage will vary. The gearbox comes with 8mm bushings. The included mastermods cylinder head relies on an embedded oring (similar to the lonex blue) to secure it against the face of the gearbox. this is bad. It can eventually lead to shearing on the centering lugs. replace this. The mastermods piston head should do you fine, tho i recommend POM. The mastermods piston is fine as well. i would recommend disabling the ebb function, its kinda gimmicky and only adds to the moving mass.

Personally, for 500 bucks, id pass on this unless your willing to upgrade it further. That amount of money can get you a very competitive pile of gear. To be clear, I got this purely for the split gearbox function as an upgrade platform; I wanted an aeg to compliment my PTW and MWS. If by chance you put a Leviathan in this, which i highly recommend, then you will need to remove a small but critical bit of material on the upper to give clearance. Failure to do can can crush the mosfet.

"This gun was very solid out of the box and looks great. I got this gun for the purpose of an easy gun to build on with the split gearbox design but that was not the case. If you plan to modify this gun, sell it. I have put too much money into this gun for it just to get worse every time me or a tech try to modify it. I would say almost 90% of replacement items to upgrade this gun are proprietary. Absolutely love evike, I just wanna say if your looking for a long term modification aeg don’t buy this gun.
10/10 looks
6/10 performance
3/10 internals