I fully believe there's a whole lot of profiteering (gouging, call it what you will) going on at the retail level. My local range also sells ammo. In "normal" times, they'd charge $20 a box of 9mm, back when you could stop at Walmart on the way and pick something up for maybe $10 or $11.
The other day I stopped in there, and saw they had plastic ammo boxes loaded with 500 rds of 9mm, for sale for over $700. Off by a back door I could see PMC and Tula boxes broken down. That's over a dollar a rd.
"but what about his cost of purchase and operating", you ask?
Well, go to Federal's site at 5:30 AM this morning, and as a member of the general public, you can get American Eagle for 44 cents a rd. Yes, that's going to only be 100 rds max, and you have to pay 12 buck shipping, which raises it to 56 cents a rd.
Federal isn't selling to the public at cost, and they aren't giving us wholesale prices.
It's human nature to profit, it's part of capitalism. It worked in reverse when there wasn't a big panic rush, someone could afford to undercut somebody else for bigger bulk sales, and those guys all kept the market down. But right now, people are willing to pay through the nose to whoever they can get things from, so there's no pressure or impetus to keep it low. Sgammo could drop it back to $10 a box, and it would sell out in under an hour, and there's such demand that everyone else could stay where they're at and keep selling. The only 'loser' would be sgammo, for minimizing their profits.
WE, the consumers, need to stop this. Wanting a good stash is one thing, buying more and more as the price climbs is another.