Developers of polyethylene grades for pressure pipe seek a deeper understanding of the resistance of these materials to high rate, plane-stress fracture. The Reversed Charpy and ASTM F 2231 "Thin Charpy" test methods are designed to index this property, at appropriately high rates, for quality control and material development purposes. This article demonstrates the possibility of deriving equivalent information from a procedure based on tensile drawing tests, via two more basic material properties—yield stress and strain hardening modulus — which are more accessible to polymer design.