Ahhhhh, the Great Lead Leaching Myth...
This topic drives me crazy...here in Massachusetts (yes, you all may wince) they are on a range cleaning binge...and the enviromental nuts are having us lime the ranges ("the pH has to be right or the lead will leach") put up extra barriers, etc.
The info I have seen over the years strongly suggests that the lead doesn't leach, but Mother Nature wraps the lead in a coating of lead oxide which seals the lead in.
During the Civil War, the Union army used a Minie ball that weighed 476 grains. I purchased a dropped, unfired bullet from a collector who dug one off a battlefield in Virginia, and when I weighed it (after it had been in the soil for 140 years) guess how much it weighed?
Yep. 476 grains.
A disgruntled member of our gun club here was thrown out for stealing funds about ten years ago, and he promptly "tattled" to the state government that the range was contamination the local swamp where the trap range was.
The state went crazy with an investigation, but found nothing. But about a year ago, they closed down the range...as I understand it...because of the "possibility" that the lead might, one day, cause contamination.
(Perhaps we should all wear Kevlar helmets...after all, we "might" one day, be hit by a meteorite.)
An attorney from Texas (lost his name) wrote to me during the range closing ten years ago, and said he had defended a dozen or so gun clubs against contamination suits...and had won them all. He said he had proof that it was all hokum.
There are plenty of people ot there who are hungry to shut down all gun ranges. Unfortunately, in "lead contamination" they have found some junk science that works.
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, folks.