I have been reloading less than a year now. I started off with Lyman corn cob media (it's green and apparently treated some some sort of super cleaning-brass polishing chemicals). It works great and I love it.

During my last gun show visit I bought some corn cob media from a vendor. It appears to be plain old bits of corn cob (not treated like the Lyman stuff). I also bought a bottle of brass polish (Frankford Arsenal) to add to the corn cob media. Well I can't get this stuff to work. Brass (even already CLEAN brass) just won't shine.

If it makes a difference I have a Lyman Turbo 1200 Pro Vibratory tumbler.

IMO, the corn cobs cleans the brass; the additives are what shine it. Since I don't go for shiny brass, I can only suggest running a thread asking for the best additives or buy only treated media.

Go to any pet store and buy a bag of crushed walnut hulls. It works as well, or better than any other stuff I've ever tried.

I agree with both of the above posts. If you want them to shine, add the Flitz polish instead of the other stuff. Get the stuff without amonia and it WILL be shiney.

Pet stores around here have never heard of crushed walnut shells, they look at me like I'm stupid when I ask them.

I bought my crushed walnut shells at the pet dept in WalMart.

it's lizzard bedding.

It is also sold as "Hampster" bedding.

No, you weren't ripped off. As others have stated, it is the additive that makes so much difference. You usually get what you pay for in this area.

If I'm really wanting to make old brass shine I use a two step process. I use coarser walnut media for the first round of tumbling then I switch to a finer, corncob media and good additive for the final round of tumbling.

However, that's a lot of work to go to when dull brass shoots as well as bright, shiny brass.