I'm betting thee is a default in your scoring and then when you take it to be officially scored its that much less. I'm guessing thats why you think yours shrink so much................ I as well noticed they don't hardly shrink at all exspecially if you cut the skull properly, maybe an 1/8 to 5 or 6 8ths. When you cut the skull you need to cut down about mid eye socket and takethe back of the skull towards the middle of the back edge of the eye socket. This will keep that bone between both sides of the rack (not the skull plate) and the eye to brain in tact and keep the spread from shinking much at all vs. just having the skull plate on the baseand nothing else.WCL