In the present paper the elastic-plastic stress of the impact end of a cylindrical specimen subjected to longitudinal compression impact with a stress bar which remains elastic during the test is investigated experimentally and theoretically. The measured elastic response of the stress bar showed explicitly the elevation of dynamic stress and its relaxation at the impact end of the specimen. The impact end stress of specimen was analyzed by using of the strain-rate dependent theory for plastic wave propagation, taking into account a rise time of impact and impact conditions. The extreme elevation of the dynamic stress was predicted in the case of a step impact, but it went down rapidly with the increasing of the rise time of an impact velocity. Taking these stresses as an incident pulse to the stress bar, the elastic response of the stress bar based on the Love theory for elastic waves almost agreed quantitatively with the experimental results as well as qualitatively.