We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brad Adcock a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brad thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

People utilize all kinds of solutions in an attempt to get better grips on their guns such as rubber sleeves and skateboard tape type material. After realizing these were all failing solutions, I started seeing others doing something called stippling on their guns. Stippling is using a wood burning type hot iron tool to melt a texture into the polymer grips of the guns for a very effective, permanent grip solution. I decided to start doing my own, also incorporating lots of other frame / grip mods as well including Cerakote (a special, ceramic based paint for guns) and laser engraving. After a while of this, a company called ATEi in Taylor, MI who does custom machining on guns reached out to contract me to do custom framework for them offering package deals of our work and theirs. Already having a great industry reputation, this helped propel me into the industry developing a reputation for our good, and effective customizations. All the while, I have been a student of the gun, and was doing as much formal training as I could. This led into creating another LLC called Minuteman Defense and beginning to teach others myself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up around guns, hunting with my grandfather and was always really into them. In my early 20’s I was the victim of an armed home invasion where my guns were stolen, and I was assaulted. I decided that day that I would never allow myself to be a victim like that ever again and I began taking the defensive side of the firearms world seriously. Fast forward a few years, I got my first AR15, and a friend of mine told me about a 2-gun competition called the American Confederation of Tactical Shooters (ACTS). Thinking I was a bad Billy with my fancy new gear, I went out to the match and was immediately humbled. I was getting spanked by old fat guys and realized there was something I was missing, that the gear wasn’t solving the problem. I stuck with it and ended up winning a handgun training course with my now dear friend Jeff Wild, owner and lead instructor of DMI Performance training company. My mind was blown by that class and at how much more there was to defensive firearms use than I thought. This sparked a bug in me, and I was hooked. Over the following years, I got into every training course I was able to, eventually getting multiple instructor certifications and beginning to train others, leading to the creation of Minuteman Defense. Jeff was also the friend that introduced me to Doug at ATEi which got Great Lakes Custom Works off the ground and running. I am now the President of ACTS, and both companies are growing and doing well. With Great Lakes Custom Works, we customize firearms, specializing in defensive handguns. We take these “one size fits all” platforms and fit them to the individual shooter, their needs and preferences. At Minuteman Defense we teach concealed pistol, and introductory defensive handgun and carbine courses, passing on the skills and knowledge I’ve gained over the years to newer shooters. At ACTS, we go out to apply and practice the skills and techniques we learn in formal training in real world scenario based competitive stages.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

No. unfortunately, I am in an industry that is routinely and severely discriminated against. I’ll never understand it as the natural, inalienable right to keep and bear arms is for everyone of every political leaning. But we are completely unable to utilize anything of these sorts. We are not able to advertise on social media, even for safety training courses. We routinely get shadow banned, or accounts just randomly suspended or deleted without warning or explanation. We can use no standard CC processing systems, instead having to rely on only a couple of companies that specialize in the field. Things like Amazon, Etsy, Paypal, Stripe, Square, etc are not even options for us. As soon as they find out what industry we are in, they cancel us. Getting insured was almost impossible. There is literally one company in the entire country that will offer coverage. Alas, we adapt and overcome. We find a way, and we in turn, blacklist all of those discriminatory companies ourselves.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Because of the discrimination mentioned above, this is extremely difficult for us. Social media becomes nearly worthless. We rely almost entirely on word of mouth. It’s very tough. But in the long run, I think the business we do end up getting from it is much better, and once someone has experienced our work, we rarely have any issue with loyalty and can almost count on them being a return customer in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: greatlakescustomworks.com
• Instagram: greatlakescw
• Facebook: Great Lakes Custom Works
• Twitter: greatlakescw
• Other: IG: Minuteman_defense FB: MinuteMan Defense actshooters.com FB: American Confederation of Tactical Shooters