The work presented here, concentrates on experimental surface roughness analysis in the milling of hardened steel using a monolithic torus mill. Machined surface roughness with respect to milling process dynamics has been investigated. The surface roughness model including cutter displacements has been developed. Cutting forces and cutter displacements (vibrations) were measured in order to estimate their quantitative influence on Ra and Rz parameters. The cutter displacements were measured online using a scanning 3D laser vibrometer. The influence of cutting speed vc on surface roughness parameters (Ra, Rz) was also studied. The research revealed that real surface roughness parameters are significantly higher than those calculated on the basis of a kinematic-geometric basic model, and their values are strongly dependent on dynamic cutter displacements.