A Case Polish you may already have

[Ritchie]

With a fresh load of corn cob media, I squirted in about 4 ounces of soft scrub cleanser. After about 3 hours in the vibratory tumbler, .223 cases are bright and shiny except for the annealed area. Also, the Frankford Arsenal tumbler has a small radius at the base of the center post. Media activity was low. I installed a small plastic funnel upside down over the post and the media moves much faster. The active ingredient in the soft scrub is calcium carbonate, chalk. Before this, I tried powdered chalk refill for chalk lines, but it had little effect.

 

[GooseGestapo]

I’ve used NuFinish car wax for decades.
Along with Turtle Wax polishing compound and a bit of Mineral spirits.

 

[AJC1]

With a fresh load of corn cob media, I squirted in about 4 ounces of soft scrub cleanser. After about 3 hours in the vibratory tumbler, .223 cases are bright and shiny except for the annealed area. Also, the Frankford Arsenal tumbler has a small radius at the base of the center post. Media activity was low. I installed a small plastic funnel upside down over the post and the media moves much faster. The active ingredient in the soft scrub is calcium carbonate, chalk. Before this, I tried powdered chalk refill for chalk lines, but it had little effect.

Calcium carbonate is the base used to build coral skeletons. That serves as the mechanical agent... I'd be curious if there are chemical agents also at work that might be overlooked. There are several sodium ingredients that give me pause.

 

[JSneezy]

I personally prefer sticking with the tried and true methods. I still have about 1/2 a bottle of the Frankford Arsenal brass polish that I've been using for the last couple years, and will probably switch to Nu-Finish or Flitz when it runs out. I'm only using the FA stuff because it came with the tumbler. I've considered adding the funnel to the tumbler, but I've found that getting the load in it just right will promote plenty of movement.

 

[ColtPythonElite]

Nearly any liquid auto polish will work well.

 

[westernrover]

Soft Scrub contains sodium hydroxide which will attack the zinc in brass. The NaOH is what initially dissolves the oxides on the brass and makes it shiny, but it's also doing damage by reacting with the zinc to produce sodium zincate and hydrogen gas. Soft Scrub also contains sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate, a dissolved solid which when dried out is hazardous to breathe as dust.

A safer way to clean brass is with water, SLES (dish detergent) acting as a surfactant, and the mechanical action of stainless steel pins. Water is the most cost-effective solution in which to suspend the lead styphnate particles from the spent primers. Lead styphnate dust is particularly hazardous and much more so than the elemental lead of bullets because of how much more readily it is absorbed by inhalation and also by ingestion of the residue.

 

[mdi]

I don't use any polish in my tumbler media, but I do add a bit of auto wax for a light wax film left on the brass to help retard tarnish. (case cleaning/polishing is one of the most talked about but least important parts of reloading). I prefer not to have any abrasive used on my brass. I tried at least a dozen things (from beach sand, pet litter, crushed walnut, wood chips, glass beads, dried beans/rice to broken up charcoal briquettes, and maybe a half dozen others for media and settled on corn cob blast media, 14-20. For tough, extra dirty/tarnished brass In add 10-20% hard resin media to my blast media which speeds up cleaning and with the corn cob mix does not leave a dull finish. https://www.harborfreight.com/autom...tting-resin-abrasive-tumbler-media-63672.html). If I want shiny brass, easier to find in the dirt, I just leave the brass in the tumbler longer...
K.I.S.S.!!

 

[Charlie98]

I still have about 1/2 a bottle of the Frankford Arsenal brass polish that I've been using for the last couple years,

For many years I had 2 bottles of Midway brass polish... which became Frankford's. That stuff was the bomb! I have since switched to Dillon's polish, and it works about as well as Midway, but there is certainly an abrasive in it... it settles to the bottom and you have to shake it like the dickens to get it mixed up... or use a screwdriver to break it up. I'm still stuck in the 1970's... using Walnut media. It works, it's paid for, it doesn't clutter up the kitchen.

 

[J-Bar]

At the risk of appearing to shill for Dillon, all I have ever used in my vibratory polisher (22+ years) is ground corn cob media and Dillon Rapid Polish 290, for both smokeless and black powder brass. Perfect. No need to mess with perfect.