In this paper, the dynamic plastic buckling of axisymmetric circular cylindrical shells subjected to axial impact is investigated. The von Mises yield criterion is used for the elastic-plastic cylindrical shell made of linear strain hardening material in order to derive the constitutive relations between stress and strain increments. Nonlinear dynamic circular cylindrical shell equations are solved with the finite difference method for three types of boundary conditions and two types loading. Two types of loading are stationary cylindrical shells impacted axially and traveling cylindrical shells impacted on a rigid wall. The growth and improvement of axial and lateral strains and buckling shapes of cylindrical shells are investigated for different boundary and loading conditions, from the viewpoint of stress wave propagation. It is found that the total length of cylindrical shell is affected by the plastic deformation when the plastic wave reaches unimpacted end. Also it is found that shortening and energy absorption are independent of loading and boundary conditions. The buckling shapes are affected by loading and boundary conditions; also peak loads at impacted and unimpacted ends are affected by loading conditions and are independent of boundary conditions. The presented theoretical results are compared with some experimental results and good agreement is obtained.