The austenite-martensite transformation followed by annealing for austenite reversion in AISI 304 stainless steel has been investigated in order to study the effect of this thermo-mechanical process on grain refinement. In particular the effect of cold reduction, annealing temperature and annealing times have been analysed. After getting ultrafine grains the effect of the grain size on the hardness and on the tensile properties has been evaluated, showing a Petch-Hall dependency in the fully analysed range (down to 0.8 mum grain size).