Stainless automotive bolts are considerably stronger than regular bolts. They are not rated the same. A regular stainless bolt is stronger than grade 12. Just don't get the shelf grade bolts from a hardware store but go to a bolt house,
Now I'm not a metallurgist, but I believe I have read that stainless steel bolts have high strength numbers, but tend to be much more brittle than regular steel. Is this correct?
I beleive you are right. I would have to check but I think SS is around 90,000 lb tensile strength and the stuff is harder than hell, not soft. Just try drilling a SS plate sometime. You can burn up a drill bit in seconds. I would have to beleive that brittleness is a problem giving it such a low grade bolt wise
Ken
Unless you buy APR stainless bolts....any SS bolt you get is going to be inferior to grade 8+ bolts. With that being said, in those applications, any SS bolt should be fine as you're worried about shear strength.