The Study is concerned with the analysis of unconstrained axisymmetric piercing as a nonsteady forging process by the rigid-plastic finite element method. In the numerical analysis of axisymmetric piercing, the initial velocity field is generated by assuming the material as a linear viscous material to begin with in order to facilitate the input handling and to ensure better convergencey. The strain-hardening effect for nonsteady deformation and the friction of the die-material interial interface are considered in the formulation. Rigid body treatment is also incorporated in the developed program. The experiments are carried out for aluminum alloy specimens (A1204) with different specimen heights. It is shown that the experimental results are in excellent agreement with the finite element simulations is deformed configuration. For load prediction the theoretical prediction shows excellent agreement with th eexperimental laod in the initial stage of loading before fracture of the specimen is not initiated. Distribution of stresses, strains and strain rates has been found for the given cases in computation. On this basis several fracture criteria are introduced in order to check the fracture initiation. It is found that maximum shear criterion is capable of good fracture prediciton.