Effects of manufacturing conditions, such as austenitizing temperature, patenting temperature and carbon content in steels, on mechanical properties, especially on reduction of area (RA), of hyper-eutectoid steel wires were investigated. RA increased and then decreased with transformation temperature. This was attributed to the presence of abnormal structures in steels transformed at low transformation temperatures and the occurrence of shear cracking during tensile testing of steels transformed at high transformation temperatures. The increase of austenitizing temperature resulted in the increased austenite grain size and consequently the decrease of RA. The decrease of RA with increasing the carbon content in steels was attributed to the increased fraction of cleavage fracture in tensile fractured surfaces.