The hole drilling technique is probably the most widely used residual stress measurement technique. The ASTM E837 standard covers hole drilling measurements for thin and thick specimens. VEQTER have encountered several cases when the specimen was between the thick and thin specification. In order to gain a greater understanding of the sensitivity of the analyses and accurately measure the residual stresses using the hole drilling technique within intermediate thickness specimens and within thin specimens containing non-uniform residual stresses a study was performed.