In this study, wear of three tool steels and one cast iron wasstudied using the ASTM G65 dry sand rubber wheel and a newlydeveloped compression-twist test. The studies show that the wearresistance depends strongly on the contact pressure exertedbetween abrasives and wear surface as wear mechanisms changeaccordingly. At low contact pressures, i.e. in the G65 test, thedominant wear mechanism appears as selected removal of thematrix. The hard phases are less significantly worn. If the size ofthe hard phases is decreased, for constant hard phase volume, theabrasive particles are less able to remove the softer matrix and thewear resistance is improved.