Schlage ALX Series Single Lever, SFIC Small Format Interchangeable Core Lever

Just the trim. It is a single ALX Series lever, the piece that mounts on one side of an ALX cylindrical lock, not a chassis-and-latch kit. So when a lever gets snapped off in a corridor, or a tenant wants a different design on the unit door, you buy the lever and reuse the lock already in the door. If the opening has no lock in it at all, you need a complete ALX cylindrical lockset, not this part.

No handing to call out. The ALX lever is field reversible, so one part number covers a left hand or a right hand door and the lever gets set to the correct side during install. For anyone buying across a portfolio that matters more than it sounds: one design and one finish covers every opening regardless of which way the door swings, so you are not splitting a stock order by hand.

ALX levers come in ten designs: Sparta (SPA), Omega (OME), Longitude (LON), Saturn (SAT), Boardwalk (BRK), Latitude (LAT), Athens (ATH), Rhodes (RHO), Broadway (BRW) and Tubular (TLR). Finishes are 605 bright brass, 606 satin brass, 612 satin bronze, 613 oil rubbed bronze, 619 satin nickel, 622 matte black, 625 bright chrome, 626 satin chrome and 643E aged bronze. Read the design and finish codes off an existing lever or off the original hardware schedule and order that same pair of codes, and the replacement matches the rest of the openings.

626 satin chrome is the US26D equivalent, and 625 bright chrome is US26. The rest of the ALX finishes cross over the same way: 605 bright brass is US3, 606 satin brass is US4, 612 satin bronze is US10, 613 oil rubbed bronze is US10B, 619 satin nickel is US15, and 622 is the matte black. 643E aged bronze has no US number behind it, so match that one against an existing 643E lever rather than against a schedule. Older drawings list the US code and current ones list the BHMA number, but they are describing the same finish.

SFIC is small format interchangeable core, the figure-eight core format used across most institutional keying programs. A lever built for it accepts a small format core that comes in and out with a control key, so rekeying an opening means pulling the core and dropping in a new one instead of taking the lock apart or changing the trim. That is why schools, hospitals and housing authorities standardize on it: one core format across the facility, and turnover on a unit or a classroom is a two minute job for the maintenance tech. The lever has to suit the core format your system already runs on, so start from the cores you stock.

Grade 2, medium duty, and built for commercial openings, with zinc and steel construction. That is the right level for ordinary commercial traffic: apartment unit entries and corridors, offices, storage and back-of-house doors, hotel guest rooms. Where it is the wrong call is the abuse openings, a school main entry, a gym, a public restroom taking thousands of cycles a week, and there a Grade 1 heavy duty cylindrical lever such as Schlage's ND Series is what belongs on the door. Plenty of facilities run both, Grade 1 on the handful of doors that get hammered and Grade 2 on everything else.

Cylindrical, which means a bored door: a face bore through the door and an edge bore for the latch, the prep on most commercial hollow metal and wood doors. A mortise lock is a different install altogether, it needs a rectangular pocket routed into the door edge, and you cannot drop one into a bored door without machining it or replacing it. Read it the other way too, if the doors on the job are already mortised, an ALX cylindrical lever will not fill that pocket and a mortise lock is what the opening takes.

No. The ALX single lever is trim, the lever itself, and the function of the opening is set by the lock chassis in the door rather than by the lever you hang on it. If dormitory function is what the spec calls for, ZenSupply carries the Cal-Royal CALDOR238, the CAL101 dormitory dead latch, which is listed as dormitory function. Settle the function first, then pick the trim design and finish to match the other doors.

No, they secure a door differently. The Cal-Royal CALDOR238 CAL101 is a dormitory dead latch, so the doors it is coming off are keyed openings. The Schlage ALX Series single lever is non-keyed cylindrical lock trim, commercial grade, Grade 2 medium duty, built in zinc and steel, and field reversible so the same part serves either hand. Putting the ALX Series lever on a door that was running a dormitory function changes how that door secures, so use it where the opening is meant to stay unkeyed and keep a dormitory function part on the doors that need the key.

They are identified by different things. The Cal-Royal CALDOR238 CAL101 is a dormitory dead latch, defined by its dormitory function. The Schlage ALX Series single lever is a small format interchangeable core lever identified by series, lever design and finish - Athens in 605 bright brass, Rhodes in 643E aged bronze, Latitude in 622 matte black and Broadway in 626 satin chrome are all the same Grade 2 medium duty non-keyed cylindrical trim in different dress. So when a line on the list calls out a function, it is pointing at a lock like the Cal-Royal; when it calls out a lever design and a finish number, it is pointing at the ALX Series.