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So yesterday I stopped at a garage sale and among all the junk I found some neat locks that I have never seen before. They are Hercules brand, model 700.
They look very much like a WB knockoff to me, but they are much smaller than any WB that I have ever seen. They are obviously from some gas utlity company, ENERGAS is stamped on the back of all the locks. They had 23 of them in a box, but no keys. The lady running the sale said that her late husband worked for many natural gas companies and these must have been left over from those days. I like and have a few WB locks in my collection so I decided to get some of these as well, and at $1 each how could I resist. So I came home with 10 of them. Several have gray paint on them and they all are full of dirt and crap, really weathered looking.





The keyway has lots of room for my picks, however, these locks are not easy picking for me. I cannot feel any security pins in there but there might be one somewhere in the back.

Is anyone fimillar with this brand?

Upon closer inspection I see that some of them are Hurculock brand and some are Hercules.
Also I found one that is a model 800, which is pretty much an exact copy of the WB locks I have.
Now I am wondering if these guys bought out WB brand.

That's interesting. I had a WB and it gave me quite a good fight. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these

And now I have picked one of these hercules. I did it with a half diamond and TOK tension wrench that was sent to me by Master_smith.
I have been trying off and on for a couple of weeks now to get one of these buggers picked, with success last night while goofing off in the KP chatroom.

I've got quite a few of these locks, all with different company names engraved on them. Some are almost new!

these are really fun locks! thanks for sending me one QB. truly a fun pick!!!!

Does look like a WB, but they are far from out of business, so there not bought out, same type of deal I bet as some of the knockoff American look alikes, probably made by WB but branded as something else. Cool looking locks though, and I don't think the keyway is a WB keyway, least not one I have seen.

Here is a pic of the avaliable WB keyways. I think the Hercules uses the bottom right keyway.

Just a thought, does that say "energas" on the back? if so, that sounds like a utility company, I have opened and fit a key to one like that before but different names. It's possible they used spools as drivers for added security.

yes they do say energas. he sent me one and they used standard drivers. my local gas company uses thes locks as well. weird how they are implemented in such a specific manner.

Sometimes employees are like little kids, if you don't sew their name into their shorts, they may not make it back home!

I just got one of these, and from the pic you posted it seems that the cylinder opens clockwise. Is this correct? I have done WB and herculocks before and they all open counter-clockwise.

This new one I have is a hercules kind.... and I have been having a HELL of a time getting it to open. Even with the snap gun. I cant SPP it. I cant rake it. I cant jiggle it. Its driving me nuts. I just want to get it open so I can clean it up a bit with a wire wheel and lubricate it good.

Didn't want to impose on Quabillion's thread (hope you're doin' well my friend), but considering
I've not seen him around in the last 10 months .........thought I'd give my 2 cents on this.

DM, I'm not familiar with Hercules, but if they are indeed WB's at heart this may prove useful:

viewtopic.php?p=47742#p47742

At the end of the article, I picked a few on video... may or may not give you some techniques to try.
In the posts following the article we discuss the picking of them a bit further. Hope it helps ya pop it!

Also, you're correct about CC openings. I cannot say that ALL WB's will open CC, but a
good many that I've encountered can indeed be picked and opened in EITHER direction.