Schlage Everest & Primus Cutaways

Schlage debuted in 1920 by founder Walter Schlage and Charles Kendrick. Being one of the most popular consumer and commercial lock seller, Schlage locks are mostly generic, low security and low costing locks. However, they do have a line of high security cylinders such as the Everest®, the Primus® and the Everest Primus®. All three of these have a new high security feature incorporated into them. These are called side pins or finger pins as we call them in the lock picking world. These are UL437 listed.

The way these work is, the cut on the right side of the key interacts in a mechanical way to lift the finger pins to the correct height. The Everest and Primus are different, both use different concepts, here are the differences.

On the Everest, the key has only one cut and lifts what we call the "check pin". The one I have is a C123.







As you can notice in the photo, the Everest key is thicker then the Primus key by 0.014" as well as the stamping on the bow.
C145 999 key.


On the Primus, the key has five cuts. These 5 cuts on the right side of the key don't only lift the finger pins, but also rotates them to allow the sidebar to fall in place. The finger pins have six possible positions. The six possible positions are: UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT or CENTER. All of this on a normal six pin vertical tumbler mechanism.





Here we can see the finger pins in action. In this photo, the finger pins are in random order and are not set in the correct position. For them to be set correctly , the pins would have to look like these:

The process of the sidebar falling into the finger pins is like a puzzle. The tongues of the finger pins need to be aligned with the grooves on the sidebar to allow retraction. Heres's a photo of a finger pin in a sidebar:

Here's the finger pin (notice the tongue)





These specifications apply to both Everest and Primus

MACS = 7
Increment: .015"
Progression: 2 step
Blade width: .343"
Depth Tolerance: + .002” - 0
Spacing Tolerance: ± .001”

That is all for now. I think this article will be quite interesting and I hope you find it to.