The shock loading and the unloading behavior of piezoresistive carbon gauges was investigated by means of impact experiments performed with a smooth bore gas gun. Experiments in the range 0.291–5.485 GPa provided shock stress‐time profiles. Up to about 2 GPa the shock loading data were fitted with a least square polynomial in good agreement with other published date. Over 2 GPa the carbon presents a strongly scattering behavior. The unloading response in the reliable loading behavior range (0–2 GPa), exhibits an important hysteresis phenomena which could be imputed to the presence of pores in the carbon strip.