We design transmission strategies for MAC layer multicast which maximize the utilization of available bandwidth. Bandwidth efficiency of wireless multicast can be improved substantially by exploiting the fact that several receivers can be reached at the MAC layer by a single transmission. However, this feature can be effectively exploited only by resolving several decision problems. The fundamental relations between QoS parameters such as throughput, stability and loss change on account of the multicast nature of transmissions, e.g., a strategy that maximizes the system throughput does not necessarily maximize the stability region or minimize packet loss. We explore the trade-off between the QoS parameters, and provide optimal transmission strategies which maximize the system throughput subject to stability and loss constraints.