Chapter 7 outlines the the requirements of welding stainless studs to stainless steel and low carbon ferritic steels.  7.2.7 indicates that base materials shall be of an alloy acceptable per 7.2.6 or low carbon steels may also be stud welded.  7.5.5 says that studs may be fillet welded using the "prequalified FCAW,GMAW,or SMAW processes" and then goes on to indicate the requirements for use of the prequalified processes. No where does it indicate that the base material must conform to the requirements of clause 3 to be prequalified.  My question is... what is indicated by the statement "prequalified process".  I have a 304 SS studs going on a low carbon vertical plate (2S) position.  I was planning on welding this with a 5/32 309 electrode so it would be prequalified by 7.5.5.5.   But is it prequalified and if not, why wouldn't the requirements listed for prequalification (7.5.5.1-7.5.5.6) also indicate that the base materials should also be prequalified per clause 3?  No where in clause 7 does it refer you back to prequalified base materials, instead it lists its own requirement in 7.2.7 for base metals.  Also, if I had to qualify this procedure, could I simply weld 10 studs and torque test them as required for the machine stud welding?  And can my welders be qualified by doing the same test on 2 studs?  There seems to be a very grey area in this clause.  If anyone has any thoughts on this or has found something in the code that I didn't find, I would sure appreciate it!