Metallurgical industry has appreciated advantages of continuous casting machines for producing a variety of high-quality products made of steel and special alloys. Design features of horizontal continuous casting machines, makes it possible to use this type of machines on mini-plants with annual productivity lower than hundreds of thousands tons of end-products. The paper examines the construction of continuous casting machines of horizontal type and principles of operation of the modern continuous casting machines intended for production of billets made of carbon quality steels and special alloys from 40 to 80 mm in diameter, describes basic requirements for withdrawal device and its operation cycle. The experimental data analysis is conducted for revealing of different combinations of basic parameters of the casting cycle and their influence on electric motor equivalent torque. Based on the results of trial operation, further mechanism improvement of withdrawal and its controls methods are proposed.