A novel all-steel miniature bar-type structural fuse (MBSF) with cold formed bolted connections is developed in this study, which consists of a central energy dissipation core cut from a smooth round bar, an external confining tube and nuts. Three types of cross sections for the central energy dissipation core, i.e., triple-cut, double-cut and single-cut cross sections, were studied. Totally 18 specimens were axially tested under either symmetric or asymmetric cyclic loading histories, where the parameters such as cut cross sectional area ratio, length of the yielding portion and cross sectional type were investigated. Numerical simulation of 2 representative specimens were also conducted. An analytical model to evaluate the bending failure at the elastic portion was proposed, and a design method to avoid this failure mode was also presented. The experimental results show that the proposed MBSFs exhibit satisfactory hysteretic performance under both the two cyclic loading histories. Average strain values of 8% and 4% are found to be respectively suitable for designing the new MBSFs as the ultimate strain under the symmetric and asymmetric cyclic loadings.