An impact facility has been designed and constructed to produce and measure large amplitude one‐dimensional compression and shear waves in solids. Design considerations and experimental details to produce the necessary impact configuration and to measure the particle velocity profiles resulting from compression and shear waves are described. Experimental results are presented to show that the impact facility was satisfactorily constructed. After a brief discussion of shear wave measurements, the experimental measurements made under compression and shear loading in polymethyl methacrylate and polycrystalline aluminum oxide are presented. These results are expected to provide new information on material response at high strain rates.