Etching characteristics of Ni₃Al grams was found to depend heavily upon their crystallographic orientation. A selected area electron channeling pattern (SACP) study in the scanning electron microscope has shown that upon etching, grains oriented near <001> appear light, while those oriented near <111> appear dark with a gradual change in gray level for grains of intermediate orientations. The secondary electron images takers from the etched surface have shown that the <111> grains contain many fine pyramidal protrusions, while the <001> grains appear smooth with no such protrusions. The SACP technique has established that the 3 faces of the protruding pyramid consist of {001} planes.