In the analysis of metal forming processes by the finite element method, there are many numerical instabilities such as element locking, hourglass mode and shear locking. These instabilities may have a bad effect upon accuracy and convergence. The present work is concerned with improvement of stability and efficiency in two-dimensional rigid-plastic finite element method using various type of elemenmts and numerical intergration schemes. As metal forming examples, upsetting and backward extrusion are taken for comparison among the methods: various element types and numerical integration schemes. Comparison is made in terms of stability and efficiency in element behavior and computational efficiency and a new scheme of adaptive directional reduced integration is introduced. As a result, the finite element computation has been stabilized from the viewpoint of computational time, convergency, and numerical instability.