I think all the new gun owners had something to do with it as well. Add to that that all new lead has to come from out of the country when recycled lead can't keep up with demand, and that regulations have strangled primer manufacturers so that we now only have three in the US and we have a problem. A friend of mine makes very effective defensive ammo only and he is buying primers from Canada and Croatia and still can't get enough to run his production lines 24/7 like he used to do. He will even manufacture ammo for people with all kinds of guarantees if they ship him the primers to utilize.
Finally, some heavy shooters have stocked up whenever they can just so they can continue to shoot their normal volume. Some have done so to avoid the kind of pricing we are now seeing ammo being offered for. When I'm at the range, I've had people come up to me and beg me or my wife to sell them ammo because they know we have it. Some of them have offered as much as 0.15 cents a round for decent .22LR. The last time we were out a guy offered my wife $1.00 per round for .9mm Lake City practice ammo.
The other problem I think contributes is the general move to semi autos. It took a while to go through 100 rounds when using a bolt gun or a lever action. Last summer I watched some 16-20 year olds go through four ammo cans of 5.56 in one afternoon without rushing. I've seen kids go through one of those Remington Bucket of Bullets in a single day using their Ruger 10/22s. Imagine trying to do that with a bolt or lever action. Semi autos chew up a lot of ammo.
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