In today's competitive environment in the oilfield industry, the end-user must choose the very lowest-cost material that will meet the technical needs of the application. This requirement is passed on to the manufacturer, who must use materials that are appropriate yet still meet economic criteria. Another factor has been the expansion of field development into deeper, more corrosive environments, increasing the demand for corrosion-resistant alloys (CRAs) at a time when the demand and cost for stainless materials has increased. In expandable sand control systems, an added burden to the manufacturer is that this new technology must compete with existing non-expandable screens that, are low-cost to manufacture with commodity type raw materials. One such example is 13Cr, being the first choice in a CRA for the base pipe in conventional sand screens. Although 13Cr is one of the least costly of the CRAs, it does provide the necessary corrosion resistance in mild H2S environments under a variety of: chloride/temperature conditions. However, it lacks the ductility, needed for 20 to 25% expansion as a solid expandable. 316L or UNS S31603 is a commodity CRA material with sufficient ductility and strength for use as an expandable screen base pipe, but its corrosion resistance is often questioned; particularly its resistance to chloride stress-corrosion cracking (SCC). This paper provides the data necessary to establish a performance envelope for S31603 and discusses the potential application of the material in several projects. Thus, S31603 is shown: to provide a cost-effective CRA material for base pipes in sand-control screens.