A study of the structure and strain-hardening ability relationship was carried out in this work for wear-resistant steels of two structural classes: high-manganese austenitic steel 110G13L and metastable austenitic chromium-manganese steel 60G9KhL. It is shown that the strain-hardening ability can be estimated using a methodologically simple engineering criterion. The criterion determines the metal tendency to harden by determining the Rockwell hardness at the bottom of the indentation cup of the Brinell press indenter