The welding technologies are widely used for design of protection layer against wear and corrosion. Hardfacing, which is destined for obtaining coatings with high hardness, takes special place in these technologies. One of the most effective way of hardfacing is using self shielded flux cored arc welding (FCAW-S). Chemical composition obtained in flux cored wire is much more rich in comparison to this obtained in solid wire. The filling in flux cored wires can be enriched for example with the mixture of hard particles or phases with specified ratio, which is not possible for solid wires. This is the reason why flux cored wires give various possibilities of application of this kind of filler material for improving surface in mining industry, processing of minerals, energetic etc. In the present paper the high chromium and niobium flux cored wire was used for hardfacing process with similar heat input. The work presents studies of microstructures of obtained coatings and hardness and geometric properties of them. The structural studies were made with using optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction that allowed for identification of carbides and other phases obtained in the structures of deposited materials. Investigated samples exhibit differences in coating structures made with the same heat input 4,08 kJ/mm. There are differences in size, shape and distribution of primary and eutectic carbides in structure. These differences cause significant changes in hardness of investigated coatings.