Iron Valley vs Primary Arms
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.
| Iron Valley | Primary Arms | |
|---|---|---|
| Active SKUs | 19,978 | 812 |
| Distinct UPCs | 19,967 | 811 |
| Shared UPCs (both carry) | 334 | |
| Only at this distributor | 19,633 | 477 |
| Uptime | 100% | 99.9% |
| Integration | SFTP | API |
| Freshness | Synced 26 minutes ago | Synced 13 hours ago |
What each one lists most of
Iron Valley and Primary Arms 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.
Iron Valley
- Firearm
- 8,039
- Ammunition
- 3,393
- Other
- 2,901
- Parts & Components
- 2,414
- Optic
- 1,864
- Suppressor
- 370
- Unknown Category
- 24
- Displays
- 14
Primary Arms
- Ammunition
- 277
- Magazine
- 273
- Parts & Components
- 216
- Optic
- 11
- Handcuffs & Accessories
- 6
- Rail Accessories
- 6
- Safety & Protection
- 5
- Seasonal
- 4
Ammunition, Parts & Components and Optic 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.
| Iron Valley | Primary Arms | |
|---|---|---|
| Ships to your store | Yes | Yes |
| Offers drop-shipping | Yes source | Not stated |
| Ships to your customer's FFL | Yes source | Not stated |
| Ships to your customer's address | No source | Not stated |
| Ships NFA items to a receiving SOT | Yes source | Not 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?
Iron Valley lists 19,967 distinct UPCs to Primary Arms's 811 — about 24.6× the breadth. 334 UPCs are carried by both — 2% of what Iron Valley lists and 41% of what Primary Arms lists. Beyond that overlap, 19,633 UPCs appear on Iron Valley alone and 477 on Primary Arms alone. If you open one account, Iron Valley is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 477 UPCs unreachable, against 19,633 if you open Primary Arms instead. Carrying both reaches 20,444 distinct UPCs, 477 more than Iron Valley covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Ammunition — Iron Valley lists 3,393 there to Primary Arms's 277. Over the window we monitor, the Iron Valley feed answered us 100% of the time and the Primary Arms 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.
Iron Valley
Iron Valley Supply's catalog only shows up on the hub once a dealer connects their own SFTP login — like Crow Shooting Supply, it uses credentials tied to a specific dealer account rather than a shared integration key, so there's no general Iron Valley feed syncing independent of any one dealer the way there is for the API-based distributors here.
Primary Arms
Primary Arms syncs the smallest catalog Project Parabellum connects to today, delivered through a dealer API on the same automated schedule as the other API-connected distributors here. Because the catalog is narrow, it works best as a secondary source that fills a specific gap rather than as the account a storefront builds its general inventory around.
Applying for a dealer account
- Apply for a Iron Valley dealer account — SFTP credentials are dealer-specific; the catalog will not appear on the hub until you've connected your own login. As a file-drop connection, catalog and stock updates land on Iron Valley's schedule rather than on demand.
- Apply for a Primary Arms dealer account — The narrow catalog makes this a supplemental source rather than a primary distributor.
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.