An experimental investigation is made of the influence of cropping, a relatively new fabrication procedure, on effective-length factors for round tubular steel struts. Tests of 18 companion pairs of cropped and sawn strut specimens, with end plates providing various degrees of end-fixity, are described. The Southwell plot method, using both transverse displacements and strains, is used to determine elastic buckling loads. These are in turn used to compute effective-length factors. Those for the sawn specimens approach 1.0 for very small end-fixity and 0.5 for large end-fixity. Except for the specimens with very small end-fixity, the effective-length factors for the cropped specimens are approximately 15% larger than those for the corresponding sawn specimens.