A set of experiments was conducted on the effects of the magnetohydrodynamic interaction in the JF10 and JFX shock tunnels at the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The velocity of freestream in JF10 and JFX facilities is about 3–6 km/s, which could generate the required hypersonic flowfield within which ionization is confined to the shock layer. Different total pressure and total temperature conditions were achieved using the test gas of air, argon and argon containing alkali metals, which could implement a different range of magnetic interaction parameters. A 46-mm-diameter sphero-cylindrical model was chosen as the test model, and a magnetic ball was installed inside it to generate the magnetic field. Typical shock standoff distance has been measured by high speed luminosity images and schlieren techniques. The results show that argon flow provides more effective flow control than air, because it can achieve higher total temperature and conductivity with lower total pressure state in the shock tunnels. The maximum shock standoff distance was obtained in the argon flow containing alkali metals because of the higher conductivity. These results validate the possibility of carrying out magnetohydrodynamic flow control experiments in a detonation driven shock tunnel, and it can provide support for the applied magnetic field effect obtained in numerical simulation.