As for eating up to the hole, I just finished butchering the right shoulder of the Iowa whitetail I killed last Saturday. I shot him with a .357 Maximum Encore pistol with a 215 gr. cast, gas-checked bullet, approx. Lyman #2 alloy I make myself. Velocity 15 ft. off the muzzle is 1850 fps with this load, I shot him quartering away at 166 lasered yards. In the third to the last rib, out the shoulder, he didn't take another step. The shoulder with the exit wound went entirely into the burger pile, bullet went through the shoulder blade. Zero blood shot meat, nice neat hole - I am "eating" right up to and including the hole. Entrance wound was a different story, I didn't want to take the time to clean the pile of hair from that piece of rib meat, but everything up to 1 inch away was just fine.
