Funny, I was just talking to Hornady about this issue.

Bullet companies {ALL of them} need to POOL research on environmental impact of lead from bullets in the ground. It is minimal/non-existent.

They MUST be proactive!

The Swedes have been wrestling with this issue and some interesting research was compiled from battlefield sites where bullets had been "deposited" at known dates in history, with little/no migration of lead oxide or lead contaminants of any sort.

Trap ranges the country over have been the subject of tests and little/no migration is present under almost all conditions and in almost all soil types. And this with very small "particles" of lead.

Barnes is VERY short sighted.

Copper is also a "toxic" substance that has its own material/chemical migration issues that are also small or virtually undetectable. But to assume that copper will be left alone for very long by the so-called "green" movement {really, a collection of leftist political types AND raw, unvarnished greed-monger Madison Avenue marketers} is ridiculoous.

Ask this:

What is "Green"?

Answer?

Anything the marketers can convince the masses is "Green".

We need to be in the fray doing some convincing, too.

Why am I concerned?

Because my shooting range is over my water supply and I don't want lead contaminant in my iced tea.

This is yet another bullshit Green Scare and we need to get the facts out.

Are there possibilities for lead migration?

Yes, under certain circumstances;

Shooting steel plates can cause vaporization of small amounts of lead and those resulting particles can theoretically be a problem. But bullet lead in the soil? Only in very highly acidic soils and even then the migration of lead appears to be very small.

That is, virtually non-migrating.