I can confirm: The Shrinker does not have a projectile when I reload a saved game with the Shrinker in my possession.
I did not check to see if the projectile is even present in the game after the load(ie if it works) but I can't see it.
This is really strange.
I will now check 8bit.
edit: The expander ammo shows up in the game. 8-bit is no different. And I noticed that the projectile never shows up or effects anything in the game world but it does count as a fire (I ran out of ammo
)