The effect of the degree of cold work, as measured by X-ray line broadening techniques, on the irradiation-induced swelling of Type 316 stainless steel has been studied using 5-MeV nickel ions as the bombarding species. The level of cold work is expressed in terms of nonuniform lattice strain, ϵ. A critical value of ϵ exists below which swelling is a strongly decreasing function of ϵ, and above which a saturation of the effect occurs such that further increases in ϵ have very little influence on the swelling behavior. The critical value of ϵ increases with increasing temperature and ion dose. The implications of these results on the design of an liquid metal fast breeder reactor fuel rod are discussed.