Abstract: A method and an apparatus for producing concrete articles, such as shaft rings, with projecting elements such as climbing irons or stirrups, by means of an automatic inserting mechanism which removes the climbing irons from a magazine and automatically inserts them into a mold core. These climbing elements are guided automatically to a core segment and are brought into housings therein during a time interval between the ejection of a completed concrete article from the mold cavity in a first working cycle and the next following work cycle in timed overlap with carried out work steps during this time interval. This automatic process takes place while the operator withdraws and takes away a completed article from the machine at the end of a work cycle and prepares the machine for the next work cycle. This leads to equally short machine cycle times for completion of concrete articles with or without climbing elements.