I wouldn't wait around hoping they come back down to pre-panic prices. While prices should come back down some, basic economic theory suggests that prices will remain higher than they were before the panic. The panic did two things to generation a structural -- or more or less permanent -- increase in long term demand. First, there are a lot of new gun owners, and their demand is now added to the general level of demand. Second, a lot of people will be rethinking the levels of supply they need to keep on hand to avoid being caught short next time. I expect supply to slowly come back, and prices to drop a little, but not back to where they were before the panic.
They only thing I can think of that would bring prices back down significantly would be a significant increase in production capacity. And even that would come at a cost, so that prices would not fall all the way back to where they were. Those prices could not support the new production capacity. But I don't know that anybody is planning major increases in production capacity. From what I've observed, casually, the supplier response has been to increase output by adding more shifts, not adding more plant.
It is purely SWAG, but expect prices to ease off about half of the increase we've seen, if that.
