An unfiltered conversation with the owner of Tanner’s Sports Center about passion, business, and giving back
When Tom Helenski purchased Tanner’s Sports Center in December 2022, he wasn’t just buying a business—he was stepping into a legacy. The Bucks County, Pennsylvania fixture had been family-owned since its founding in 1992, and Tom knew that taking the reins would mean more than just keeping the doors open. It would mean preserving a community institution while navigating the complex realities of the modern firearms industry.
In a recent episode of the Accuracy Matters podcast with Dan Kogan of 360 Precision, Tom opened up about his journey, his challenges, and his mission to give back to the veteran community that shaped him.
Where It All Started
Tom’s relationship with firearms began young, around seven or eight years old, at 22 shoots at Lower Providence. “They used to do all these little fun things with kids like shooting out the flame from a candle and stuff like that,” Tom recalls. “That’s kind of when it started.”
It wasn’t just recreational plinking. Tom actually made the local paper for a youth competition shoot, an early glimpse of the competitive spirit that would follow him throughout his life. That foundation in the shooting sports, built during those formative years, would eventually lead him to business ownership decades later.
The Training Problem Nobody Talks About
One of the most passionate discussions during the podcast centered on a critical gap in the firearms training ecosystem: where do people actually learn to draw from the holster?
“How do you get someone qualified to do these shoots, to draw from the holster, to do these things when no one lets you do it?” Tom asks, highlighting a catch-22 that plagues new shooters. “How do you get the experience to let them do it? Unless you own a farm out in the middle of nowhere and you just do it on your own, there’s nowhere else around here to do it.”
Tom points to Langhorn as a rare exception, a range that allows shooters to progress while maintaining safety. “They’ll let anyone come in, but their RSOs are great,” he explains. “The RSOs are right there without breathing down your neck and making you feel nervous. They will train you to do this shoot so that you keep coming back.”
This approach matters more than ever. “Especially this day and age when everybody’s buying for self-defense and everyone wants to carry a firearm, but they don’t have anywhere they can practice drawing from the holster,” Tom notes. “Any of these ranges you go to get a membership or even go do a daily shoot, they’re not going to let you draw from the holster, but that’s what you need to know how to do to defend yourself.”
The Safety Equation
Tom isn’t naive about risk. He acknowledges that accidents can happen, even in controlled environments. “Is there going to be the occasional ND or something? Maybe. But as long as it’s in a safe direction and no one got hurt, okay, the board shouldn’t shut it down.”
His point is about layers of safety rather than zero-tolerance policies that ultimately prevent skill development. “There’s all these layers of safety that are put in place because if you miss one, two, but okay, we know where the round went, ultimately the gun or whatever was pointed downrange and we know where the round went.”
The conversation touched on the NRA’s revitalized AR Challenge program, which Tom sees as a promising development. The program features progressive levels with training built into the early stages, exactly the kind of structured skill development the industry needs. “Before the level one, there’s actually like a train up. So you get to do some practice before the actual course of fire,” Tom explains.
Beyond the Gun Counter: 308 Coffee
Perhaps the most surprising part of Tom’s story isn’t about firearms at all, it’s about coffee.
Tom launched 308 Coffee as a vehicle for supporting veteran organizations, a cause close to his heart as a disabled veteran himself. “I’m big on donating to veteran organizations and it’s a little difficult to do through the gun shop,” Tom admits. The reason? “There’s a lot of organizations that don’t want to be associated with the firearm industry, even though it’s for vets, which doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me.”
What started as what Tom thought would be “extremely simple” quickly became anything but. “I was like, ‘Oh, with the industry I’m already in and all the people I know, it’ll go great,'” he laughs. “Well, with all the hurdles that you run into doing this and thinking you’re going to keep the cost lower than anyone else, you’re not. Once you get into how much everything costs to market it, to get your bags right. It’s ridiculous how many things go into this.”
Despite the challenges, Tom remains committed to the mission. “A big portion of the proceeds are going to go back to these organizations. And that’s the mission. That’s the company’s mission.” He’s currently working on obtaining disabled veteran-owned business certification, which will allow him to sell to the government, a revenue stream specifically set aside for disabled veteran-owned businesses. “They have money for disabled veterans that they’ll buy from us just because we’re disabled veterans, which will help us make money to donate to these organizations.”
A Rising Tide Raises All Ships
Throughout the conversation, Tom emphasizes a philosophy that seems increasingly rare in business: cooperation over competition. “I’ve been talking to the NRA the last couple of days about the ‘rising tide raises all ships’ thing,” Tom says. “I’m friends with a number of technically what I would call competitors of what we do and we all get along.”
This collaborative spirit, Tom believes, is essential for the shooting community. “There’s just a bond I find between all of us in the shooting community. And we need to continue to grow that bond as much as possible. There’s enough forces working against us that we need to really work to build a stronger relationship between all of us.”
It’s this mindset that led to one of the podcast’s most touching moments: Dan Kogan presented Tom with a $2,000 check from 360 Precision to support 308 Coffee’s mission. “You guys have been great,” Tom says, clearly moved by the gesture. “If we can give back as a company, I’m all about helping you guys out. You guys help us out. You make a great product. Hopefully it’s a very symbiotic relationship that we get out of it all.”
The Takeaway
Tom Helenski’s story is one of passion meeting purpose. From those early days shooting out candle flames at age seven to now owning a respected firearms retailer and running a veteran-focused coffee company, Tom represents a different kind of firearms industry professional, one who sees business as a vehicle for community building and giving back.
His frustrations with training access highlight real gaps in the industry infrastructure. His transparency about the challenges of starting 308 Coffee shows the unglamorous reality of entrepreneurship. And his emphasis on collaboration over competition suggests a path forward for an industry that often faces external pressures.
For anyone considering entering the firearms business, thinking about how to give back to the veteran community, or simply wondering what it’s really like behind the counter at a gun store, Tom’s conversation offers valuable perspective: it’s harder than it looks, it matters more than you think, and it’s worth doing right.
To learn more about Tanner’s Sports Center, visit them in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. To support Tom’s mission of giving back to veterans through 308 Coffee, check out his veteran-owned coffee company. For more conversations like this one, subscribe to the Accuracy Matters podcast on YouTube and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.
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