Crow Shooting Supply vs Orion

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 Orion.
Crow Shooting SupplyOrion
Active SKUs24,38615,418
Distinct UPCs24,38715,418
Shared UPCs (both carry)3,609
Only at this distributor20,77811,809
Uptime100%99.9%
IntegrationSFTPAPI
FreshnessSynced 1 hour agoSynced 52 minutes ago

What each one lists most of

Crow Shooting Supply and Orion 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

Orion

Firearm
8,407
Ammunition
2,869
Parts & Components
974
Magazine
752
Optic
399
Suppressor
319
Knife & Tool
182
Light & Laser
153

Firearm, Parts & Components, Optic, Magazine 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 Orion.
Crow Shooting SupplyOrion
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 Orion's 15,418 — about 1.6× the breadth. 3,609 UPCs are carried by both — 15% of what Crow Shooting Supply lists and 23% of what Orion lists. Beyond that overlap, 20,778 UPCs appear on Crow Shooting Supply alone and 11,809 on Orion alone. If you open one account, Crow Shooting Supply is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 11,809 UPCs unreachable, against 20,778 if you open Orion instead. Carrying both reaches 36,196 distinct UPCs, 11,809 more than Crow Shooting Supply covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Orion lists 8,407 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 Orion 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

Orion

Orion Wholesale runs a general-line catalog roughly in the middle of the size range Project Parabellum syncs, connected through a dealer API on the same schedule as the rest of the API-connected distributors. Its scope stays broad rather than specializing in one category, which is the main reason a dealer would add it alongside a more focused distributor in their mix.

How to open a Orion 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 Orion dealer accountThe general-line catalog makes this a reasonable single account for a dealer not chasing a specific specialty.

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 Orion, 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.