I have read the explanation of the current ammo shortage, and not sure I still believe it. No doubt COVID, shipping delays, political turmoil, etc, led to panic buying and temporary shortages, just like there were toilet paper shortages. But now everything except ammo seems to be available.
I am not sure what is going on, but I am not sure I am still buying the narrative provided.
Upon some consideration, I think the answer is- ammo being plentiful was always an illusion.
I learned this on a small scale with .32 acp. It wasn't a popular round, not a lot of demand for it. You could buy it online pretty easily. I had a couple old pistols, little Mausers and a Savage, an old WW2 era CZ, etc. So I looked around, picked up a case of some Geco or something from LAX ammo, for basically 9mm prices. About $200 shipped. Local stores had stuff for $20 a box, this was a much better deal. It was the best price, but only by a little, if/when I looked around. There seemed plenty of good options, but you had to consider shipping etc.
And then, the surplus Beretta 81 wave happened.
Buddy of mine texted me the first day, I bought one for $199 from Classic before I even responded to him. And then I decided that day, I wanted to get more .32, to feed my new toy.
And apparently so did a lot of other people. I did an ammoseek search for the best price... went to the first place, starting trying to put stuff in my cart... insufficient quantity. Out of stock. 2nd place, things in cart, could not check out. Out of stock. And so on. On the 6th site, I went somewhere that showed how much in stock... they had Blazer aluminum. 80+ boxes. Add to cart, but now there's only 30+ ...I put a case in but that didn't work. I was able to put 11 safely into the cart and check out, at $11.50 apiece.
By the end of that day the cheapest available .32 acp online was $19 a box.
That's .32 acp, a caliber nobody was looking for, getting wiped out by a single batch of guns. "Oh, there's not a lot of .32 being made, that's different"; sure, but that's still national stock, multiple big vendors, and the precipitating factor was what, a couple thousand Berettas being bought. I realized right then, what we THINK is plenty, is only enough to cover what the market NORMALLY wants.
Point being, we all thought there were tons of 9mm available, and there was... but MILLIONS of people suddenly want it. And those of us who shoot a lot, we suddenly want more than we usually get, and more often. I admit once the toilet paper shortage hit, I started getting 9, 45, 223, 308 whenever I could, as much as my paycheck would allow, if I could find anything. And I wasn't picky on brand, just price. When SGAmmo and Targetsports were sold out, I placed orders through Cabela's and Bass Pro, and got back-ordered. When people were raging about those backorders, I was looking at remanufacturers, some still had listed ammo, and I scooped them up. When folks moaned about no more brass, I took in Tula and Silver Bear 223 (and added some more 7.62x39, which was still $210 a case). While everyone got angry about the rising cost of 9mm and 45, I added barrels to shoot 7.62 Tokarev and 9mm Largo, and got a couple cases of that. Cheap steel Hot Shot 45 for 26 cents a round, you're doggone right I bought what they let me. I have cheap 1911's, they can eat cheap ammo. I did that because I could feel the anxiety, the big push to "get something", and I could tell it was going to be real bad. And I like to shoot, and wanted to ride this storm out.
And the thing is, I wasn't alone, or the exception. I got ahead of a couple things, got left in the cold on others. I'm basically set for now, others are still looking, and still paying the increasing prices. Sooner or later, we'll all have enough, product will still come pumping in, eventually it will level off and come back down.