Is it time to phase out lead ammunition?

Anyone promoting non-lead bullets doesn't understand ballistics, guns, or economics.

Lead is nearly the approximate of gold in terms of ideal ballistic characteristics.

Lead is the perfect material for most bullets.
* Soft, so it is easy to form and won't damage barrels, and expands when it hits a target such as self defense or hunting ammunition. This is a very important quality. Hard materials like steel will damage barrels, and are banned in some locations as perpetrators.
* Dense. Density is required to maintain accuracy and transfer energy into animal or human targets. Light materials will not maintain trajectory as well.
* Cheap and widely available. At pennies per pound, the next best materials cost 3-1000 times or more the cost of lead (copper, silver, gold).

Common problems below:
* Steel - illegal penetrators or for shot for hunting, damages barrels, damages steel targets, banned on many ranges, rusts.
* Plastics - clog rifling, not as accurate, too lightweight for long distance shooting, not dense enough for penetration or damage.
* Copper - much more expensive, not as soft as lead, good as a jacket, too expensive for a solid round
* Silver/Gold - far far far too expensive
* Glass - doesn't work, fragile and hard, no expansion, (may be illegal or inhumane as glass is hard to find and extract from wounds, can move to heart through blood stream)

Are there any other non-traditional materials?

The reasons lead were removed from other products is because it wasn't necessary and it was a real danger. Gas didn't need it, and burning lead in the air is bad. Paint didn't need it, and kids ate paint chips.

Bullets are pretty much limited to lead, and kids aren't eating bullets, and the amount of lead used is trivial, and lead pretty much just goes back into nature where it came from.

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Is it time to phase out lead ammunition?