<p>Slender shafts subjected to local friction have important applications, such as in drilling. Also, stability maps are important tools that guide decision makers. These stability maps are affected by initial conditions, boundary conditions, and so on. Although used abundantly, there are few articles that investigate their sensitivity with respect to initial conditions. Moreover, there is no experimental attempt in this sense, up to the authors’ knowledge. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a methodology to construct, experimentally, torsional stability maps for different conditions: (i) starting the system with friction contact from rest, (ii) starting with rotation before the friction contact, and (iii) imposing axial oscillation of the platform. These conditions are important to be analyzed, because they might happen in a real drill string system. The findings indicate that initiating shaft rotation prior to axial contact and applying axial oscillations during contact contribute to improving torsional stability. In addition, depending on some conditions (e.g., temperature and material wear), the results change considerably. The experimental results obtained here might guide other developments, including new stochastic models to take into account uncertainties.</p>