The sizing accuracy of cold drawing materials of cold heading machine shall generally be determined according to the specific requirements of products and process conditions. Generally speaking, the multi station cold heading machine has lower requirements for the accuracy of reducing diameter and forced shrinking size. It is required that the total thickness of decarburized layer in the radius direction of cold drawn material shall not exceed 1-1.5% of the diameter of raw materials (the specific situation depends on the requirements of each manufacturer).

The steel used by cold heading machine to manufacture fasteners and connectors (such as bolts, nuts, screws, rivets, etc.) is called cold heading steel, commonly known as rivet steel. Commonly used are quenched and tempered alloy steel, low temperature tempered alloy structural steel, low carbon low alloy high strength steel, ferrite martensite dual phase steel, etc. Cold heading is plastic forming of metal at room temperature.