NickE: I'm not sure where I got the impression that ductility improves fatigue life. I certainly believe it to be the case that the effect of stress concentrations is much less with ductile materials than brittle ones, so perhaps that's where my assumption came from. It is my understanding that for ductile materials, the stress concentration factor should be applied only to the alternating stress component, but for brittle materials the stress concentration factor should be applied to both the alternating and steady component, so perhaps I am mentally extrapolating from that. But probably you are correct and additional ductility beyond a certain level has no further effect, all other things being equal.
unclesyd: Perhaps I should mention that this is a rather unusual situation, where the bolts (actually studs) are being called upon to act as highly preloaded axial tension springs with very short travels. To provide maximum insurance against overstressing, it appears that it will be necessary to employ the very best material available.