As I told earlier on this forum, lead containing bullets were banned in one part of Germany because it is proven that eagles have been killed by eating dead animals that contained bullets or part of bullets made from lead. It had nothing to do with lead contaminating the soil, which obviously doesn`t happen to a degree worth mentioning. But in Germany there are only very few eagles and I think it is a good idea to protect them, even if we hunters have to adjust our equipment. I have killed buffalo with Barnes X and TSX bullets so it should be no problem to use lead free bullets (any brand) for shooting wild boars, deer etc. Also it is proven that lead particles from conventional bullets contaminate the meat of the animal shot with it and that is another reason to think about lead free bullets.
That the lead free bullets were banned at a later time had to do with an accident where a ricocheted bullet killed a person and the authorities quickly acted although it is still not clear if a conventional bullet would have been safer in that particular case. As far as I know there is still some research going on to get reliable data on ricochet behaviour of bullets. Here in Europe there is a lot of competition going on with lead free bullets and many hunters use them with good success.
BTW, I use Lapua Mega in my 9,3x62 and Woodleigh SN in my .470 but I admit that lead has some disadvantages and may cause a health risk to animals and humans under certain circumstances.

Kalunga