Keywords Point load test Meta-sedimentary rock Uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) Brazilian tensilestrength (BTS) Conversion factor1 IntroductionThepoint loadtest hasbeen consideredasacheap andusefultesting method to estimate the strengths of rocks due to itsease of testing, simplicity of specimen preparation, andpossible field application (Broch and Franklin 1972; Bie-niawski 1975; Kahraman and Gunaydin 2009; Basu andKamran 2010). It has been often reported as an indirectmeasure of the compressive or tensile strength of rocks(Fener et al. 2005;C¸obanog˘lu and C¸elik 2008; Heidari et al.2012; Chau and Wong 1996). Samples can be of variousshapes, including cut cylindrical cores tested axially ordiametrically, cut blocks, or irregular lumps [Brook 1985;International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM) 1985;American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) 2008].The point load test can be used to test both strong and weakrocks (Hardy 1997; Heidari et al. 2012; Tsiambaos andSabatakakis 2004; Kahraman and Gunaydin 2009). Estab-lishing a proper correlation between the uniaxial compres-sive strength (UCS) and point load strength index (I