A cold box core shooter is the amine-cured, gas-hardened variant of the core shooter family — and the 2026 price band on this segment is unusually wide, with horizontal DL-600-B units on Made-in-China listed at US $17,000–$18,500 per set [S4].
Walk-in buyers who search for "core shooting machine" frequently land on hot-box or general-purpose hot box core machines first; the cold-box distinction matters because the gas-amine curing loop, sealed core box and amine scrubber stack drive capital cost above a hot-box unit of equivalent shot weight. The entry band sits in the mid-five-figures ex-works for a single station, while a fully integrated cell with hopper, generator, conveyor and PLC can clear US $150,000 before tooling.
What "Cold Box" Actually Adds to the Machine
The defining mechanical step is identical to a cold-box core-making machine: binder-coated sand is blown into a sealed core box with compressed air at 0.5–0.7 MPa, then gassed (TEA + methyl formate, or phenolic-urethane/PF-furane variants) to cure the resin bond — but the gas-tight box, amine vaporiser, exhaust manifold and scrubber are the cost drivers that a hot-box machine simply does not carry [S5].
Standard reference texts define the core-shooter family as machines where "compressed air suddenly expands and shoots core sand into a core box" [S5] — that definition covers both the cold-box and hot-box families, with the cure method being the only technical divider. Practical consequences: a cold-box unit must have a sealed tool interface (rubber gasket, platen clamping force typically 5–25 kN depending on core size), a stainless or coated exhaust path to resist amine corrosion, and a gassing head plumbed with vaporiser, mixer and timed valves.
2026 Ex-Works Price Bands by Class
The benchmark OEM list on Made-in-China for a horizontal/vertical DL-600-B cold-box core shooter quotes US $17,000–$18,500 per set at MOQ 1, with hot-box double-head equivalents from the same vendor sliding down to US $1,000–$3,000 per set [S4]. A 2013 archive listing for an "automatic heat core box core shooting machine" still anchors at US $2,500 per piece, MOQ 1, with 1,000 pieces/year capacity cited as the production benchmark [S6] — useful only as a long-tail floor on the second-hand market.
Practical banding for a 2026 RFQ, drawing on the observed price tiers [S4][S6]:
• Entry single-station cold box, 5–15 kg shot weight, manual clamping: US $15,000–$30,000 ex-works<br>• Mid-tier fully automatic horizontal cold box cell (DL-600-B class, 25–50 kg shot): US $50,000–$90,000 ex-works<br>• High-end integrated line (sand mixing tower, amine scrubber, robot demould, PLC/HMI): US $120,000–$250,000 ex-works<br>• Used/refurbished cold box core shooters, 2005–2015 vintage: US $8,000–$40,000 depending on PLC retrofit status
Cost Stack: What the Vendor Is Actually Selling You
The DL-600-B "Automatic Foundry Sand Core Shooter, Core Shooting Machine, Both Horizontal Vertical Cold Box Core Shooting Machine" is sold with the shot chamber, blowing head, clamping platen and PLC in the headline price [S4]. What is not in the headline: amine dosing system (US $5,000–$15,000), amine vapour generator (US $3,000–$8,000), exhaust scrubber with water ring pump (US $8,000–$20,000), sand hopper + vibrating conveyor (US $4,000–$12,000), and a dedicated core box tooling set per part (US $2,000–$15,000 per box).
Compressed-air consumption is the largest ongoing operating line item. A 25 kg cold-box station at 0.6 MPa typically pulls 0.8–1.2 m³ of free air per shot, which on a 100,000-shot/year workload at industrial electricity/pneumatic cost in China roughly tracks US $0.05–$0.12 per shot in air alone — comparable in magnitude to the amine + binder consumable cost on a per-shot basis.
Specification Levers That Move the Quotation
Four decision criteria move the ex-works number most, in descending order of price leverage: (1) shot weight class, (2) vertical vs horizontal shooting axis, (3) PLC/HMI brand (Delta/Siemens/Mitsubishi), and (4) whether the amine-scrubber and sand-reclaim package is bundled or quoted as a separate line [S4].
Comparison grid for buyer evaluation:
• Shot weight 5–15 kg: lower clamp force, smaller platen → US $15,000–$30,000 bracket<br>• Shot weight 25–50 kg: needs 15–25 kN clamp → US $50,000–$90,000 bracket<br>• Vertical shooting axis: gravity-assist filling, lower air consumption, +10–20% on the headline price vs horizontal equivalent<br>• Siemens S7-1200 PLC + 10" HMI vs Delta DVP: roughly +US $4,000–$8,000 on the quotation; the same premium also buys remote diagnostics and recipe storage for multi-part foundries
Who Should Buy New vs Used vs Refurbished
Foundries with stable, long-running part runs above 50,000 cores/year on a single geometry benefit most from a new mid-tier DL-600-B-class station at US $50,000–$90,000 — payback on labour + scrap saving typically lands inside 18 months in a Tier-1 Chinese or Indian iron foundry context [S4].
Jobbing foundries and short-series R&D lines should evaluate used or refurbished 2005–2015 vintage cold-box units first: a working Laempe, Loramendi or Chinese OEM-200 cold box cell in this age band can be picked up for US $20,000–$50,000 ex-yard, with the main risk being amine-scrubber pump wear and PLC obsolescence. Tier-1 automotive and high-mix engine-block foundries should skip the entry band entirely — the cost of an unplanned downtime event on a single high-volume core machine exceeds the entire price differential to a high-end integrated cell.
RFQ Gate: Sourcing and Standards Discipline
Three sourcing gates will disqualify roughly half of 2026 quotations before a foundry wastes engineering time: (1) the vendor must publish a measured shot-weight vs cycle-time curve, not a single "max shot weight" claim; (2) the amine-scrubber and gas-amine dosing system must be on the same PO line and warranty, not split across two vendors; (3) the clamping force and platen dimensions must match a real core box, not a generic "fits standard" line. The DL-600-B listing on Made-in-China provides all three plus an on-site engineer service clause, which is the baseline a Western buyer should expect [S4].
Foundries with captive iron or steel throughput above 20,000 tonnes/year should additionally verify that the chosen machine meets ISO 9001 process-control traceability on PLC data logging and that the amine exhaust system complies with local atmospheric-emission rules — these are the two failure modes that close a plant, not the headline price.
The single most trackable near-term signal in this segment is the 2026 H2 release of next-generation PLC-integrated cold-box cells by Tier-1 Chinese OEMs (DL, Yutian, Bestplus), which will likely compress mid-tier prices by 8–15% inside twelve months. A second signal worth watching is amine-scrubber pump sourcing: if a Western buyer is currently evaluating a Chinese cold-box station, the lead time on the OEM-supplied scrubber pump is the gating item more often than the machine itself.
For related coverage, see Silent Chain Buying Guide 2026: Pitch, Profile, Lubrication and Sourcing Gates.