Abstract Metal manufacturing processes like machining include complicated load cases and significant plastic deformation inside the manufactured component. The Finite-Element-Method (FEM) has been successfully applied to analyze machining processes. The plastic deformations during machining operations, especially of ductile materials, are a major part of the total deformation. If the deformation incorporates a large plastic deformation part with changing spatial directions, kinematic hardening should be considered, additionally to isotropic hardening. Previous work on the kinematic hardening of ARMCO iron revealed an almost near constant ratio of isotropic and kinematic hardening. The constant kinematic hardening ratio is revised and analyzed in tensile-compression tests with normalized AISI 5120. The FEM simulation results using the new material model of the kinematically hardening AISI 5120 are validated with experimental force measurement during orthogonal machining. The influence of kinematic hardening during machining operations is not the major influence, but still substantial.