Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Pucker Facture Precision – Growing a Startup

With the help of: Manufacturing Works

About

Pucker Facture Precision is a custom firearms manufacturing startup, established in 2018, that designs and manufactures custom rifles to the most discerning customers and provides an array of gunsmithing services to many. Their mission is to provide custom solutions for customer’s unique individual requirements to ensure successful hunting and competitive shooting experiences. They have a unique approach to custom builds, which begins with founder Brian Woodward and thirty plus years of experience working in the firearms industry and as a competitive shooter.

The Challenge

The first few years of a startup tend to be the most crucial for survival. Even with innovative new technology, establishing a client base, let alone a repeat client base, in the first few years can be very hard, and is critical to success. In 2018, Pucker Factor began receiving orders and business started to grow, but to everyone’s surprise, 2020 was about to bring major changes and disruption. With the state of the current pandemic, keeping a business thriving, vibrant, and bringing in revenue is challenging. Many processes that were once easier have now become a major hurdle, such as supply chain management. For Pucker Factor supply chain had started consuming a significant amount of time for senior management in order to keep up with component sourcing to maintain orders. This led to cash flow struggles, in turn limiting business growth. For help, Pucker Factor turned to Manufacturing Works, the Wyoming MEP and part of the MEP National Network™, for management operations support needed to fix the supply chain issues.

It's great to work with Manufacturing Works-Wyoming, an organization that took time to first find us and seek us out and then learn about our business and understand our culture to better support our requirements. This is our first exposure to Manufacturing Works consulting, and we will continue to use them as a force multiplier that produces intuitively positive solutions to challenging problems that produce mission success. Today, my company is growing, much stronger and works better as a team. The value that Manufacturing Works and their consultants provided is highly valued and as such we continue to work with them.
— Brian Woodward, President/Owner

MEP's Role

Manufacturing Works engaged with Pucker Factor’s owner and CEO Brian Woodward after gaining understanding of their requirements and needs. As a new client Manufacturing Works took the time to learn and fully understand the business, and developed a road map to achieve long term goals. With the owner’s full support, Manufacturing Works moved the plan forward. In a short period Manufacturing Works identified a source of capital that would allow Brian to build his inventory of components and leverage the relationship with one vendor to become a regional distributor of their products. This solution is allowing Brian to double his annual revenue and hire two additional people to meet the new orders for his custom solutions. 

Created April 27, 2021, Updated July 16, 2022