The determination of through thickness residual stresses in pipes and pressure vessels is of growing interest because of emphasis placed on life prediction, design, and failure analysis of piping systems. Most of the through thickness residual stress measurement techniques require the placement of gauges on the outside and inside of the pipe. These methods are severely hampered when gauges cannot be placed on the inside of the pipe. This constraint could arise for small diameter pipes, long pipes or for pipes that have been used in a service condition causing corrosion or fouling of the inner surface.This paper focuses on the first step of a three step procedure for determining residual hoop stresses in thin walled pipes and tubes. The method described is designed for cases where it is impossible to place gauges on the inside of the pipe. The method yses biaxial strain gauges on the outside of the pipe and involves a through thickness axial cut of the pipe. Based on the change in strain on the outside of the pipe, changes in the hoop residual stress distribution due to the axial cut are obtained with the method presented here. The method provides a means to evaluate changes in stresses on both the outside surface and the inside surface of the pipe as well as an evaluation of the change in through thickness hoop stress distribution at any location in the pipe cross section. This paper further demonstrates that the problem of shortening long pipes to enable placement of gauges on the inside of the pipe can result in the loss of significant residual stress information.