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We investigated the quantitative effect of internal shear on grain breakage during rock avalanche runout, by means of 38 ring-shear experiments on identical sand samples at different normal stresses, shear strains and shear strain rates. We compared sample grain-size characteristics before and after shearing. We found that grain size decreased with increase in normal stress and shear strain. Reduction in grain size was inferred to occur through grain breakage associated with grain interactions in strong force chains during strain. The results were consistent with observations of both inverse-grading structure in deep rock avalanche exposures, and fining and grading of particles with increasing rock avalanche travel distance. Our study suggested that with appropriate calibration, variations in grain-size distributions within a rock avalanche deposit would provide quantitative information on the distribution of internal shear during its runout.