diff --git a/exo/inference/tinygrad/tinygrad_helpers.py b/exo/inference/tinygrad/tinygrad_helpers.py
index d3aa234e..a33b01ae 100644
--- a/exo/inference/tinygrad/tinygrad_helpers.py
+++ b/exo/inference/tinygrad/tinygrad_helpers.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from exo.inference.shard import Shard
 from exo.helpers import DEBUG
 from exo.download.hf.hf_helpers import get_allow_patterns
 from fnmatch import fnmatch
+import re
 
 
 # **** helper functions ****
@@ -42,6 +43,10 @@ def load(fn: str, shard: Shard):
     if DEBUG >= 2: print(f"Excluded model param keys for {shard=}: {sorted(set(weight_map.keys()) - set(filtered_weight_map.keys()))}")
     return {k: parts[n][k] for k, n in filtered_weight_map.items()}
   elif fn.endswith(".safetensors"):
-    return safe_load(fn)
+    weight_map = safe_load(fn)
+    for k in list(weight_map):
+      if (n := re.search(r"\.(\d+)\.", k)) and not (shard.start_layer <= int(n.group(1)) <= shard.end_layer):
+          del weight_map[k]
+    return weight_map
   else:
     return torch_load(fn)