Large steel water pipes in Korea are joined prevalently by bell end method and welded at inside as well as outside of the pipes with the length of leg which is same as or larger than the thickness of pipes. This results in an excessive consumption of material and labor compared with foreign counturies such as USA, so that in our recent situation of requiring a number of water pipes such consumption is very ineffective and an improvement in weld design of water pipes is urgently necessary. In this experimental study, the possibility of reducing the length of leg to 85% of the pipe thickness was investigated through observations of microstructure and cross section of weldments, the tensile test, and the impact test of the field and laboratory specimens. As the results of this study, it was revealed that water pipes which have the leg of fillet about 0.8xthickness show a good weldability, have a greater strength than the base metal and absorb the enough energy to be safe in the working condition of the pipes.