Barclay & Mathieson is your trusted partner for round engineering steel bar. We offer dedicated sales support to the precision engineering industry, designed to help keep your production output moving and your customers happy.
From your initial enquiry and the finalisation of your requirements and order details, to the material processing, supply and beyond – Rikki and Kristina are here to help!
Engineering steel is a category of steel produced to controlled chemical and mechanical standards, typically used for machined and load-bearing components. It includes plain carbon and alloy steels which contain elements of chromium, molybdenum or nickel to tailor performance. Compared with general structural steels, engineering steels offer an improved response to heat treatment and machining, providing a wide range of properties including strength, toughness, ductility, fatigue resistance and wear resistance.
Engineering Steel Bars are available in different types (e.g. Black, Bright), forms (e.g. Rounds, Square) and grades (e.g. 070M20, 817M40T), and used the world over in a variety of applications and sectors.
Barclay & Mathieson is proud to support both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and engineering companies who often form a critical part of a longer supply chain.
A few common uses of our engineering steel is in the manufacture of machined parts, such as gears, axles, shafts, spindles, rollers, pins, washers, cylinders and discs etc. These are often integral components in equipment like yellow goods and other off-highway vehicles used in sectors like agriculture and construction – or even the landing gear of an aircraft - or in hard-wearing tools and machinery in any sector, from mining to material handling/processing. The possibilities are endless for our steel.
Review 2026 Stock ListBS 970 Steel Designations
We typically provide engineering bars to BS 970 steel designations. These grades continue to be widely specified and requested by our UK customers, even though this British Standard has been officially superseded by BS EN documents.
Numeric BS 970 steel grades are formed from six characters, e.g. 070M20, and, to support our customers further, we also provide the older EN designations in brackets, e.g. 070M20 (EN3) that appeared in BS 970 pre-1991 editions.
The first three characters in a BS 970 steel designation identify the group and alloy type e.g. 070M20:
070 – 080 = Plain carbon engineering steels. These numbers represent the mean manganese content
200 – 250 = Free-cutting engineering steels with enhanced sulphur content for ease of machineability. These numbers represent the mean sulphur content
600 – 650 = Molybdenum alloy engineering steels
700 – 750 = Higher-strength chromium–molybdenum alloy engineering steels
800 – 850 = Nickel–chromium–molybdenum alloy engineering steels
Where ‘M’ is the fourth character of a BS 970 steel grade, mechanical properties are available with the steel, e.g. 070M20.
The last two numbers identify the mean carbon content, e.g. 070M20:
07 = ~0.07% carbon
20 = ~0.20% carbon
36 = ~0.36% carbon
40 = ~0.40% carbon
A ‘T‘ suffix, e.g. 708M40T, indicates the steel has been heat treated i.e. hardened and tempered, to improve the material’s strength and toughness.
If you have any questions about BS 970 steel designations or steel specifications to BS EN 10083, BS EN 10088 and BS EN 10277, please contact Rikki or Kristina, the Barclay & Mathieson Engineering Bar sales team, on 0114 254 3220. We’re here to help!
Barclay & Mathieson is a Marubeni-Itochu Steel Inc company. We belong to the BM Group, a diverse group of UK brands comprising the following steel stockholding and profiling businesses: BM Steel; Industrial Metal Services (IMS); Abram Pulman & Sons; Steel Plate & Sections (SPS); Angus F Gunn; as well as the architectural systems specialist, BM Architectural.
Steel is our business and we are backed by large company resources, investment and purchasing power which result in outstanding value and service to our customers.
Contact our dedicated engineering steel sales team today, for expert advice, stock and pricing enquiries, additional services e.g. cutting, turning or grinding, and nationwide deliveries:
