Crow Shooting Supply vs Lipseys

Both catalogs are synced into one shared vocabulary, so the same UPC can be counted on either side and matched across them. Everything below is what we measured in the two feeds — how much each one lists, how much of it is the same product, and what only one of them carries.

Catalog size, overlap, feed uptime, and integration type for Crow Shooting Supply and Lipseys.
Crow Shooting SupplyLipseys
Active SKUs24,38619,259
Distinct UPCs24,38719,259
Shared UPCs (both carry)4,122
Only at this distributor20,26515,137
Uptime100%99.9%
IntegrationSFTPAPI
FreshnessSynced 1 hour agoSynced 55 minutes ago

What each one lists most of

Crow Shooting Supply and Lipseys describe their catalogs in their own words, and we resolve both against one shared product vocabulary before counting. A category below therefore means the same thing on either side. Each list is that distributor’s own largest categories, counted in active listings.

Crow Shooting Supply

Parts & Components
6,485
Firearm
5,009
Reloading
3,595
Optic
2,958
Tools & Maintenance
1,759
Magazine
1,267
Safe & Storage
941
Light & Laser
292

Lipseys

Firearm
13,561
Parts & Components
2,608
Magazine
1,352
Optic
1,216
Light & Laser
318
Ammunition
95
Safe & Storage
34
Holster
26

Firearm, Parts & Components, Optic, Magazine, Safe & Storage and Light & Laser appear in both lists, so those counts can be read against each other directly.

Each list stops at that distributor’s eight largest categories. A category on one list and not the other is one we have not counted here, not one that distributor does not carry.

Where each one will ship it

Taken from each company’s own site on the dates shown on their individual pages. Running a drop-ship programme and naming where the parcel goes are separate questions, and most distributors answer only the first — so “Not stated” below means they have not published it, not that they refuse.

Drop-ship programme and shipping destinations for Crow Shooting Supply and Lipseys.
Crow Shooting SupplyLipseys
Ships to your storeYesYes
Offers drop-shippingNot statedNot stated
Ships to your customer's FFLNot statedNot stated
Ships to your customer's addressNot statedNot stated
Ships NFA items to a receiving SOTNot statedNot stated

Every distributor here ships to your own licensed premises — that is what a wholesale account is, not a policy any one of them publishes. Confirm anything you will act on directly with the distributor.

Which should you open?

Crow Shooting Supply lists 24,387 distinct UPCs to Lipseys's 19,259 — about 1.3× the breadth. 4,122 UPCs are carried by both — 17% of what Crow Shooting Supply lists and 21% of what Lipseys lists. Beyond that overlap, 20,265 UPCs appear on Crow Shooting Supply alone and 15,137 on Lipseys alone. If you open one account, Crow Shooting Supply is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 15,137 UPCs unreachable, against 20,265 if you open Lipseys instead. Carrying both reaches 39,524 distinct UPCs, 15,137 more than Crow Shooting Supply covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Lipseys lists 13,561 there to Crow Shooting Supply's 5,009. Over the window we monitor, the Crow Shooting Supply feed answered us 100% of the time and the Lipseys feed 99.9%.

This is arithmetic on the counts above, not a recommendation of one company over the other. Which account is worth opening also depends on terms and on what your customers ask for, neither of which is in the catalog data we measure. What each company publishes about shipping destinations is in the table above it.

Crow Shooting Supply

Crow Shooting Supply syncs a large catalog through a file-drop connection rather than a live API, and it's one of two distributors on this hub — alongside Iron Valley — where Project Parabellum authenticates with credentials tied to your specific dealer account rather than a shared integration key. That means Crow's catalog and stock data only appear on the hub once a dealer has connected their own account, unlike the API-based distributors whose general catalogs sync independent of any one dealer's credentials.

How to open a Crow Shooting Supply dealer account

Lipseys

Lipsey's runs a mid-sized catalog and markets a line it calls "Exclusive Firearms" — models it describes as produced specifically for its own distribution. Project Parabellum polls that catalog over a dealer API on the usual automated schedule, so exclusives and standard items arrive through the same connection and land on this hub the same way, with no separate feed or extra account behind them.

How to open a Lipseys dealer account

Applying for a dealer account

  • Apply for a Crow Shooting Supply dealer accountSFTP credentials are dealer-specific; connecting Crow to Project Parabellum requires your own login, not a shared account. Because this is a file-drop connection, updates land on Crow's schedule rather than on demand.
  • Apply for a Lipseys dealer accountAn Exclusive Firearms listing — a model Lipsey's describes as produced specifically for its own distribution — may arrive here with no match from another feed to set beside it, so expect it to appear as a single source rather than as one of several listings to weigh against each other.

Both links leave this site. Applications are submitted to, reviewed by, and approved by the distributor themselves — Project Parabellum is not part of that process and cannot speed it up or vouch for you.

Project Parabellum is not affiliated with Crow Shooting Supply or Lipseys, and neither distributor reviews or supplies this page.

The counts here are our own measurements of the feeds we sync, refreshed hourly. They describe what each distributor sends us, which is not the same thing as everything either company sells, and they will differ from figures published elsewhere.