An experimental study was performed to investigate the seismic performance of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) special-shaped columns. For this purpose, 17 steel reinforced concrete special-shaped column specimens under low-cyclic reversed load were tested, load process and failure patterns of the specimens with different steel reinforcement were observed. The test results showed that the failure patterns of these columns include shear-diagonal compression failure, shear-bond failure, shear-flexure failure and flexural failure. The failure mechanisms and characteristics of SRC special-shaped columns were also analyzed. For different SRC special-shaped columns, based on the failure characteristics and mechanism observed from the test, formulas for calculating ultimate shear capacity in shear-diagonal compression failure and shear-bond failure under horizontal axis and oblique load were derived. The calculated results were compared with the test results. Both the theoretical analysis and the experimental results showed that, the shear capacity of T, L shaped columns under oblique load are larger than that under horizontal axis load, whereas the shear capacity of +-shaped columns under oblique load are less than that under horizontal axis load.