The process of conjoined stress cycling and abrasive or erosive wear is encountered in industry. However, very scant attention has been paid till now to this issue. The paper presents two test rigs designed and built to cope with this experimental problem. Tests were carried out on the range of pure iron (Armco), carbon steels namely S235JR, C45, C70U, C80U, C110U and unalloyed cast steels (L40III, L45III and L50III). Tested iron-based alloys differ in chemical composition, microstructure and Brinell hardness ranging from 80HB to 350HB. Stress cycling caused strain hardening of ferrite in hypoeutectoid steels and thus reduced their abrasive wear loss. In the hypereutectoid steel stress cycling impaired integrity of the microstructure thus increasing abrasive wear loss. Alternating stresses enhanced ploughing and cutting micromechanisms of erosion. Tensile stress in the tested cast steel had a stronger effect on wear loss than the prior stress history.