If there is a chance that fiat wealth could lose all or most of its value it makes sense to invest in things that have intrinsic value, and in a situation like that there's little that will have more intrinsic value than ammo. It seems like I saw a bumper sticker that said something like this: ammo: the currency of the new millennium.
Inflation is kind of a sneaky devil. Ammo might get back to its pre-Obama cost but still cost more dollars than it did before. The inflation is thanks to Obama too.
I don't know what's going on with .22 ammo, unless maybe the industry just decided that they had been selling it for too little. I got an ad from CDNN a few days ago offering solid lead .22 in a 500 round brick for $49.99 (plus shipping), with a limit, like it was some super fantastic deal. I used to get those things for ten bucks.
I remember quite a few years ago seeing ammo being offered that was made with some kind of plastic or polymer instead of brass cases; it was advertised as being reloadable many times, at least as good as brass, and it cost less. It was only offered for a very short time and then I never saw it again. You'd think that with the technology we have ammo components that are hard to get could be made with something else. Unless some force is stopping that from happening.