I am a veterinarian, general practice, not a surgical specialist. Injuries to the liver and diaphragm are fairly common among pets hit by cars, and we also need to biopsy the liver for diagnostic purposes with some frequency.
While the liver bleeds readily, it is also soft and deformable, so it closes on itself and staunches minor bleeding fairly easily. Large arteries need to be tied off, but smaller bleeders in the bulk of the liver resolve with pressure, and the liver in its own place, surrounded by other organs and fat, has a fairly strong tendency to put sufficient pressure on its own defects and form serviceable clots.
Handling the liver in surgery has left me thinking that it is not that great a target, simply because hitting a big artery that would result in a fairly quick physiologic stop is quite a crap shoot. There is much wisdom in JohnKSa's words about a psychological stop, and a shot to the liver may have a lot of value in that way. A chest shot, with hemothorax and/or pneumothorax occurring even when you miss the heart, seems to me to have better odds for a physiological stop.
The debate about temporary wound cavities has been around for many moons. Based on how soft tissue reacts in surgery, my bet would be that temporary cavities would have to encompass a blood vessel of significant size to cause a physiological stop in short order, and really big arteries aren't that closely spaced in much of the body. Stretching of viscera causes significant pain, though, so I would expect the size of the temporary cavity to have a variable but often significant effect on psychological stops.
A lot of people overestimate the potential for bleeding from a wound. I had a surgery professor once tell me "Significant bleeding is that which you can hear." That was tongue in cheek, of course, but the point he was making is valid to both surgery and self defense: It takes a big artery to lose blood fast enough to put you in immediate danger. When someone is shooting back at you, you don't want to wait for the blood to gradually ooze out of him so that he slips peacefully into shock and unresponsiveness. The way to end the fight is to hit something important, hit it fast, and hit it hard. The liver, especially in its periphery, is not such a site.
While the liver bleeds readily, it is also soft and deformable, so it closes on itself and staunches minor bleeding fairly easily. Large arteries need to be tied off, but smaller bleeders in the bulk of the liver resolve with pressure, and the liver in its own place, surrounded by other organs and fat, has a fairly strong tendency to put sufficient pressure on its own defects and form serviceable clots.
Handling the liver in surgery has left me thinking that it is not that great a target, simply because hitting a big artery that would result in a fairly quick physiologic stop is quite a crap shoot. There is much wisdom in JohnKSa's words about a psychological stop, and a shot to the liver may have a lot of value in that way. A chest shot, with hemothorax and/or pneumothorax occurring even when you miss the heart, seems to me to have better odds for a physiological stop.
The debate about temporary wound cavities has been around for many moons. Based on how soft tissue reacts in surgery, my bet would be that temporary cavities would have to encompass a blood vessel of significant size to cause a physiological stop in short order, and really big arteries aren't that closely spaced in much of the body. Stretching of viscera causes significant pain, though, so I would expect the size of the temporary cavity to have a variable but often significant effect on psychological stops.
A lot of people overestimate the potential for bleeding from a wound. I had a surgery professor once tell me "Significant bleeding is that which you can hear." That was tongue in cheek, of course, but the point he was making is valid to both surgery and self defense: It takes a big artery to lose blood fast enough to put you in immediate danger. When someone is shooting back at you, you don't want to wait for the blood to gradually ooze out of him so that he slips peacefully into shock and unresponsiveness. The way to end the fight is to hit something important, hit it fast, and hit it hard. The liver, especially in its periphery, is not such a site.
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.With only a 6.5x55 .Never saw anything like that.