In our area, little fishing/hunting stores camp out at WalMart when .22 is scheduled too arrive, and they buy it out before an hour is gone in the shipment day. This to me from the mouth of the clerk who works that department.
These hunting stores then repackage it and sell it in their shops. Obviously at multiple times their buying price.
It is not just little shops that have been doing it, but individuals as well. I have heard of it from multiple locations.
The market was short circuited by the manufacturers refusing to raise the prices to wholesalers to any appreciable level.
In a free market, manufactures charge what the market will bear, until supply and demand curves cross. If they are making lots of profit, manufactures increase production, and prices drop.
But with .22 ammunition, the manufacturers did not raise prices to reduce demand to producition levels, and neither did Walmart, creating the situation we have seen.