The invention is directed to a cylindrical milling cutter whose cylindrical body is provided with grooves which extend along its length at a distance from one another and at an angle to the longitudinal axis, and indexable cutting inserts, particularly coated carbide cutting inserts, are arranged in these grooves. For substantially preventing axial forces acting on the milling cutter or on the material to be machined, it is proposed either that the grooves and therefore the knife edges of the indexable cutting inserts are portionally oriented at different angles, these angles being selected such that the axial forces occurring in one portion during the machining process are neutralized or reduced in a defined manner by the axial forces occurring in the adjacent portion, or that the indexable cutting inserts are alternately arranged or oriented in the grooves in such a way that the axial force caused by one indexable cutting insert during the machining process is neutralized by the axial force caused by the adjacent indexable cutting insert.