It has been established that the variation of macroscopic and local shrinkages as functions of particle contact size are similar in character. This is evidence that in the sintering of tungsten powders contact growth and densification are due to a single mechanism. A calculation of contact growth involving geometric models on the basis of elementary mass transport mechanisms gives good agreement in the case of mechanisms of viscous flow and surface diffusion. The latter is not a controlling mechanism of contact growth, as is shown by the unique contact size dependence of shrinkage obtained in this work. Surface diffusion, however, does not lead to shrinkage. In [12] a description is given of cases where no mass transport is induced by surface diffusion. In the initial stages of sintering (ΔV/V ≈ 6–8%) there is a correlation between macroscopic shrinkage and shrinkage calculated on the basis of viscous flow and grain-boundary diffusion mechanisms. In the whole temperature and time ranges investigated there is a close match between shrinkage calculated on the basis of a viscous flow mechanism and local shrinkage values.