The combustion process and the performance of a diesel engine are considerably affected by the characteristics of fuel spray. It is known that the spray of swirl nozzle for diesel engine injector of small orifice ratio becomes soft spray that has no core, therefore its penetration, one of the characteristics of spray becomes werse inspite of its good dispersion. In this paper, the spray characteristics of variously designed swirl nozzle for diesel injector were investigated by the photographic method. The nozzles, used in this experiment, vary in the diameter of swirl chambers and orifice ratio. From the results of the study, the sprays of this type nozzle of optimum swirl chamber and orifice ratio show that penetration decreased slightly but dispersion and spray volume increased remarcably, compared with unswirled single hole nozzle of the same size. It was suggested as a reason for the results, that the spray of this type swirl nozzle is similar to hard spray, therefore the core of the spray sustains good penetration considerably.