Stress determination is a very important step in the assessment of the safety of existing reinforced concrete structures. In rock mechanic this goal is achieved with the over-coring technique. The main idea behind such a technique is to isolate a material sample from the stress field in the surrounding mass and monitor its re-equilibrium deformation response. If the materials remains elastic, and elastic properties are known, stresses may be obtained from the corresponding measured strains. The goal of this paper is to evaluate if the over-coring technique is applicable to reinforced concrete members. The results of an experimental investigation on the behaviour of compressed concrete columns subjected to the over-coring technique are presented. Considerations about the range of applicability of the technique are made by comparing the measured and the theoretical stresses. After that, results of failure tests on drilled specimens are presented and discussed. Furthermore, the response is compared with that of columns core-bored before the compressive test. Finally, comparisons with numerical analysis are shown.