The fracture behavior of the disc specimens in the Brazilian test is closely related to the reliability and accuracy of the experimental results. To comprehensively investigate the effect of various loading methods and rock material types on the failure mechanism of the Brazilian discs, five different rock types tested with three typical loading methods were employed in this work. The digital image correlation (DIC) method was applied to record and analyze the strain and displacement field of the specimens during the loading process. Experimental results indicate that the peak load and deformation characteristics of the Brazilian discs are strongly affected by the loading types. The Brazilian test with the Chinese standard is evidently not suitable for measuring the tensile strength of rocks, and the other two testing methods may lead to an invalid failure mode for rock materials with high stiffness and tensile to compressive strength ratio. Furthermore, it revealed that the maximum equivalent stress point of a disc specimen is co-controlled by the material stiffness and its tensile–compression ratio. The present work shows that it is necessary to select a suitable loading configuration for each rock type in the Brazilian test.