An investigation was conducted to find out the factors influencing on the impact toughness of austenitic-and duplex stainless steel weld metal. Various welding process with commerically available consumables was adopted to get weld doposited metal. The oxygen content of each weld metal was very sensitiive to welding process, involving flux composition, shielding gas and structural features. The results of this study show tat the content of oxygen as an oxide inclusion significantly affects impact toughness, and .delta.-ferrite distribution is also correlated with resultant toughness value.