Austenitic type stainless steel and not hardenable by conventional quenching. It could be considered as a variant of AISI 302 stainless steel, but with high sulfur and phosphorous contents, which favor its machinability, hence they belong to the family of steels known as "Free Machining Stainless Steel"; is distinguished by:

• It is not magnetic in the annealed condition, although it can reach a certain degree when subjected to forming processes such as cold machining or deformation (strain hardening).
• Due to sulfur and phosphorus, it acquires high machinability, but its hot forging capacity is diminished, which makes it sensitive to the appearance of internal and external cracks during rolling.