There are a number of ways to characterize the tendency of a product to distort after machining. Two of the more popular are strain energy density and stress range. This paper looks at the relationship between these two parameters and their relationship to machining distortion. It will be shown that machining distortion is linearly related to both the square root of strain energy density and the stress range. It will also be shown that both parameters are insensitive to the excised part size, excise location, and underlying distribution of stress. This limits their use in product specifications.