Tandemkross is Growing By Solving Problems

“In our business, it’s innovate or die,” says Tandemkross co-owner Bryan Haaker, “because sooner or later, your product will get copied by someone.”

That observation explains why many companies focused on a single product type are memories instead of going concerns. It’s the challenge faced by many custom parts makers. If they “stay in their lane” they’re essentially moving backwards. Aftermarket accessories is a highly-competitive market. If you’re not mixing your products, you’re obsolescing your business.

If you’re not familiar with Tandemkross, you’re not alone. They’re another of those established niche companies in the shooting industry. They’re recognized in the world of competition shooting, especially rimfire competition. Like the more-widely recognized Volquartsen, their triggers, barrels, parts, pieces, and springs have a near-cult following in the very competitive world of rimfire shooters. They share another trait, too…their products work.

That was brought home to me when I attended my first Metal Madness competition last year. I thought I had pretty good guns. Or I did until I saw ones that had been “Tandemkrossed” by other shooters. Compared to theirs, mine looked like box stock cars parked next to an F-1 racer.

Fortunately, Ben Suprenant from Tandemkross took pity on me. As the photo at the top shows, they changed my Ruger Mark IV for the better, both in performance and looks. Unfortunately, they couldn’t help the inaccuracy of the shooter.

An important point was made once again. High quality aftermarket accessories help your gun, whether you’re a hunter, a competitor, or simply want a cleaner trigger that performs better. But if you’re missing with the the improved gun, you may have identified the real issue. Dealing with that is a challenge no gear swap can fix. That takes time and practice.

Last week, I had the opportunity to talk with the owners of Tandemkross about their business. Co-founder Bryan Haaker has been there since the company’s unusual beginning. New co-owner Tom Sullivan has joined the company after retiring from Ruger. Sullivan, formerly the Senior Vice President of Operations at Ruger, brings a decidedly broader view to Haaker’s decidedly creative leaning.

I started with a simple question: how did Tandemkross get started? The answer was not what I’d expected. It turns out the company didn’t start as a company. ‘Tandemkross’ was the name Haaker chose for an online gaming team. “I started Tandemkross to make some friends and not be so lonely in college,” he explained, “I literally took two columns of words, took my favorite words that sounded good together, and I glued them together. They happened to be ‘tandem’ and ‘cross.’”

Team Tandemkross was pretty good too, working their way up to number seven in the world Quake rankings. Then Haaker had an epiphany. “I hated all my team members,” he told me. “They were very pompous in the fact they didn’t think they had to practice to get better despite my telling them that if you’re number seven, you’re not number one…it wasn’t all raw skill.”

So he fired them. All of them. Then he began another team with a different approach: enjoy the game and be nice. “We never got above about one hundred fiftieth in the world,” he laughed, “but we had way more fun.”

Rolling forward a few years, Haaker and company co-founder (and longtime friend) Jake Wyman were working together in the software industry when Wyman shocked his friend with a simple sentence: “I bought a gun.”

The gun turned out to be a Ruger Mark III…with issues. “It didn’t run well and the magazines wouldn’t drop free,” Haaker said, “and they got stuck in the pistol.” So they went looking for solutions and found a working fix, a small bushing from a man named Sam Lamb in Canada. It took some “smithing” but they got it into the gun and then it ran flawlessly.

Seeing an opportunity, these software entrepreneurs called their Canadian contact and asked why he wasn’t offering these fixes online. It turned out he wasn’t really interested in that, so they bought 100 bushings from him and started selling them themselves. They sold out — quickly — and from that little bushing, they’ve built Tandemkross.

Today, the company has “around 300 products and more than 1,000 SKUs” for a variety of rimfire rifles and pistols.

It also has the same challenges any small business faces when it’s grown to the point that it’s not so small any more. Enter new co-owner Tom Sullivan, late of Ruger. He got to know the owners when Ruger was actually considering acquiring the company. “We were never going to pay the numbers they thought it was worth,” Sullivan laughingly recounted, “but I liked them and what they were doing.”

Sullivan was good at fixing factories, but not so good at retirement. “After about eight months, I realized I liked what I did and the people in the industry too much to stay away,” he said, “so I started talking with Bryan and Jake.”

As a result, Tom’s now Haaker’s new partner. And they’re both looking forward to continuing to grow the business. They wouldn’t give me any specifics, but both were quick to tell me “there are some exciting things coming at SHOT.”

They also agree on the development theory that’s helped Tandemkross grow to where it is today. “We’re not going to sell anything that doesn’t solve a problem. And the problems don’t come off the computer screen, they come out where the shooters are, so that’s where we’ll be.”

But, Tom’s also quick to add, “That doesn’t mean it can’t be cool, but cool comes after we solve a problem.”

I have no clue what they’ll unveil at SHOT Show 2025, but I’m curious. And I have another rimfire that’s a candidate for a makeover. I might even work in some practice time. It couldn’t hurt, right?

As always, we’ll keep you posted.