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I use crushed walnut shells (the Zilla lizard litter from the pet store) in a vibratory tumbler. I stopped using liquid polish additives after an episode where clumps of wet media settled into some cases (some folks put the polish into the media and run it a while with no brass to disperse the clumps). Now I add a little powdered jeweler's rouge to my media.
I tumble for a couple of hours. The exterior of the cases is cleaned but it does not look brand new. That's good enough for me; I don't bother re-tumbling in corncob. It does not shine the inside of the cases. This does not concern me.
If I ever have a situation where my brass gets mud inside, I soak the cases in water (maybe a little dish soap) to dissolve the worst of it.
A friend brought over his Thumlers tumbler with the stainless steel pins. I tumbled some fired pistol brass. Now that brass was really clean, inside an out. It looked like factory virgin brass.
I let the wet tumbled brass air dry for a while and then reloaded it. There was enough moisture trapped in the old primers or primer pockets that it fouled the primers as I reloaded. I had a failure rate of about 20%.
You can avoid that by decapping the cases before wet tumbling, and also by drying the cases more throroughly.
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