The milling test was carried out on the side plate of radial tire mould. The effects of spindle speed, feed per tooth and cutting depth on the specific cutting energy, material removal rate and surface roughness of the radial tire mould were studied. By analyzing the experimental results, it can be seen that the specific cutting energy decreases with the increase of cutting parameters, which indicates that the cutting efficiency and energy consume can be improved by increasing the cutting parameters appropriately; the surface roughness increases first and then decreases with the increase of spindle speed, and increases with the increase of cutting depth and feed per tooth. The experimental results show that by increasing the spindle speed, the specific cutting energy can be reduced and the surface roughness can be improved; with the increase of feed per tooth and cutting depth, the specific cutting energy can be decreased, but the surface quality is deteriorated. Therefore, in order to achieve the requirements of high efficiency, energy saving and good surface quality, the spindle speed should be increased as far as possible.