My aunt's sister in law's nephew, that works at a Putt Putt range told my sister's ex boyfriend that anything an expert in the ammo field, economic guru, or any owner of any manufacturer of components, ammo, or guns is a liar. This whole time, all manufacturing has been at normal levels, but instead of selling to the public to make money, they have been storing all products in a secret underground government facility in the hills of West Virginia for the last three years.
Apparently the plan is, a month or so before the 2024 elections, it will be announced all employees of firearm related industry will be laid off, with double pay and benefits for five years, taxpayer funded, and only the inventory in the SAFC (strategic ammo firearm cave) will be available to the public at ten times the actual value, and after all service branches of the US government take what they want.
The other explanation is, it was a simple supply/demand economics 101 issue during a worldwide pandemic labor and manufacturing shut down, that took sometime to recover from, as the experts had predicted.