High speed milling experiment on the hardened mold steel (CALMAX at hardness of HRC 55) is carried out using small diameter ball endmills. Tool lift and wear characteristics under the various machining parameters are investigated Effect of dynamic runout on the wear of the tool is also studied. For most of the cases, catastrophic chipping of tool edge is not observed and uniformly distributed wear on the flank surface of the tool is obtained. It is found that lower rate of tool wear is obtained as the cutting speed is increased. Also, high pick feed rate is found to be more favorable in terms of the tool wear and material removal rate.