A high-temperature sodium stainless steel heat pipe was fabricated and its performance has been investigated. The working fluid was sodium and it was sealed inside a straight tube container made of stainless steel. The amount of sodium occupied approximately 20% of the total volume of the heat pipe and its weight was 65.7gram. The length of a stainless steel container is 1002mm and its outside diameter is 25.4mm. Performance tests were carried out in a room air condition under a free convective environment and the measured temperatures are presented. The start-up behavior of the heat pipe from a frozen state was investigated for various heat input values between 600W and 1205W. In steady state, axial temperature distributions of a heat pipe were measured and its heat transfer rates were estimated in the range of vapor temperature from 50$0^{circ}C$ to 63$0^{circ}C$. It is found that there are small temperature differences in the vapor core along the axial direction of a sodium heat pipe for the high operating temperatures. But for the range of low operating temperatures there are large temperature drops along the vapor core region of a sodium heat pipe, because a small vapor pressure drop makes a large temperature drop. The transition temperature was reached more rapidly in the cases of high heat input rate for the sodium heat pipe.