Cold work is known to increase the susceptibility of 300-series stainless steels to high temperature water stress corrosion cracking in the presence of high tensile stress. Although environmental testing is often performed on material that has been uniformly cold worked, this condition may not exist in an actual component. Often times, surfaces are deformed during manufacturing and installation, resulting in a through-thickness gradient in cold work (hardness) and residual stress. The stress corrosion cracking behavior of two elbows from different heats of annealed 304 stainless steel were used to assess the influence of a hardness gradient on stress corrosion cracking susceptibility. Autoclave tests on arc tension specimens machined from the elbow intrados and extrados were performed at 274°C under different loading conditions, dissolved gas species, and through wall depth locations to assess the influence of the hardness gradient on stress corrosion crack growth. The work shows that a decreasing hardness gradient will diminish stress corrosion crack growth, but has no appreciable influence on corrosion fatigue.