They are hard to find and expensive, but the best all around bullet I've ever dealt with in any caliber is the RWS H-Mantel. it gives the best of both worlds: rapid expansion and deep penetration.
The H-Mantel is a dual core bullet with a sharp "cutting" shoulder just in front of the cannelure. When it hits, the shoulder makes a very clean "cookie cutter" type hole. The front core is soft and rapidly fragments. The rear core is very hard and is designed so that it will not deform. This ensures that the second core will offer maximum penetration and exit from the animal. Upon exit, the shoulder again makes a very clean, circular hole that does not destroy massive amounts of meat or ruin the hide, but at the same time bleeds readily and makes tracking significantly easier(assuming the animal does not drop at the shot). The bullet is also extremely accurate (less than 1 MOA accuracy out of my Ruger M77)
I've shot a black bear, two white-tailed deer, an impala, and a zebra with my 9.3x62 shooting H-Mantel bullets. The shots on the black bear and the zebra both traveled over 30" and all of the bullets exited. Just as advertised, all of the animals had massive internal damage where the first core fragmented, but exhibited deep penetration by the second core and nice "clean" exit and entrance holes in the hides with minimal meat loss.
If I only had to have one rifle to hunt with for the rest of my life, it would be my Ruger M77 in 9.3x62 and I would use the H-Mantel bullets for everything smaller than an eland.
Below is a link to the RWS page where they describe their bullets if you're interested. They don't have any retailers in the US. However, every now and then you can find them on MidwayUSA or gunbroker.com for sale. If you find any, be sure to snatch them up while you can. I promise you won't be disappointed.
http://rws-munition.de/en/hunting/products/rws-centerfire-rifle-cartridges.html#!0/34/0
