Shrink factors used by grain buyers account for both moisture shrink and handling loss. Grain buyers typically use drying tables or a constant shrink factor to "pencil shrink" the grain they buy.
Some grain buyers use drying tables which include moisture shrink and a constant handling loss, usually 0.5% of the initial weight of the grain. Using this method, the formula for calculating total shrink is: Total Shrink = (total moisture shrink) plus (handling loss).
Example: If we were to dry shelled corn from 25.5% to 15.5% moisture (a removal of 10.0 percentage points), the total moisture shrink would be 10.0 multiplied by 1.183 (from Table 1), or 11.83% of the original grain weight. Add to this the 0.5% handling loss for a total shrink of 12.33%. Thus, if 1,000 lb. of 25.5% moisture corn were dried to 15.5% moisture, the total weight loss due to water and dry matter removal would be 123.3 lb. (1,000 multiplied by 0.1233). The resulting weight of the dried grain would equal 876.7 lb. (1,000 minus 123.3) or 15.6 standard bushels (876.7 lbs divided by 56 lbs/bu) using this shrink method.