Hardox 500 is a higher-hardness member of SSAB's abrasion-resistant plate range, quenched and tempered to a nominal Brinell hardness of roughly 500 HBW. That jump from the 400/450 grades buys meaningfully better resistance to sliding and gouging abrasion, at the cost of somewhat reduced cold-forming tolerance — shops working with 500-grade plate typically need larger bend radii and more attention to cold-cracking risk during fabrication than they would with the softer Hardox grades.

Hardox 500 is a common specification for heavy-wear components that see severe, sustained abrasive contact: crusher liners, screen plates, dredge and dragline components, and wear parts in mining and quarrying equipment where the extra hardness translates directly into longer service life between replacements. As with the rest of the family, it's supplied as through-hardened plate designed to be shaped and welded into finished wear parts.

Hardox is a trademarked SSAB product brand, not a designation covered by AISI, DIN, JIS, or other national steel standards. There is no direct international standard equivalent — comparable through-hardened wear plates are marketed by other producers under their own trade names, but chemistry and guaranteed properties are not identical across brands.

At roughly 500 HBW, Hardox 500 is solidly into the hardness range where machining becomes a specialized, deliberate operation rather than routine metal removal. The through-hardened, tempered martensitic structure resists the cutting edge uniformly across the entire cross-section, meaning tool wear accumulates steadily on every pass rather than concentrating at isolated hard inclusions the way it might on a lower-grade steel with a more variable microstructure.

Successful machining at this hardness depends on maximizing rigidity everywhere in the setup — tool, holder, and workpiece — combined with wear-resistant coated carbide grades chosen specifically for hardened-steel work, and cutting speeds cut back further from what's used on Hardox 400/450. Most shop work on 500-grade plate is thermal cutting and edge preparation; where drilling or boring is unavoidable, expect noticeably shorter tool life than on softer stock and plan feeds and speeds conservatively to protect the cutting edge from premature chipping.