Agree with Ren
Remember what the purpose of tumbling brass is. Theres no magic formula or voodoo magic imo that is left unturned. Just decide if you want to wet tumble or dry
Wet pros
1. Cleaner brass if that matters to you, i like it since it doesnt damage any 200$+ dies i have.
2. Dont have to worry about corn or walnut in flash holes, but if reloading 223, needa make sure pins arent in case
3. Fast and fool proof. 1tbsp dawn, a pinch of lemishine, ss pins, and as much brass as you can fit in a frankford wet tumbler, done in 1hr and your brass and primer pockets are brand new
4. My frankford wet tumbler has hundreda if not thousands of hours run between my brother and I. Still using the same 5lb ss pins from 4 years ago. No issues yet, my lemishine bottle is 90% full still. And i just use whatever dish soap on hand lol.
Wet cons,
1. Takes longer to dry, i lay it on a cookie tray and set on counter overnight. If in a rush, stick outside at noon and if sunny should be dry in like 4hrs ish
2. Pins can give u a HA. I would reccomend a big metal mesh with eyes as small as possible. I found that the easiest way to dump pins and brass to rinse off without pins goin all over.
Dry pros
1. No waiting for drying or dealing with pins
2. Significantly quieter than a wet tumbler if that matters to u.
Cons
1. Doesn't clean nearly as well in the same time. If that matters
2. Dust dust dust. Maybe cuz im q nurse, but i try to avoid smelling dust as much as can, esp since it has lead and primer pocket crud involved
3. Primer holes can get walnut or corn stuck
4. You will need to recharge the media or cycyle thru media periodically
My current setup from rhe past years of experimenting (i use both dry and wet lol, whicj might not help your decison making)
1. Take fires brass and put in a labeled container after each range sesh
2. After countainer is full or if i need brass i dump into my dry tumbler with walnut media and a dollop of flitz media charger (maybe 1 dollop every 3 times or so cuz this crap can be expensive)
3. Cycle for like 30min max (just trynna remove some carbon from outside surface)
4. Dump into hornadya dry media seperator (gets maybe 80% media off). At this point it wont matter if i have a kernel in the case
5. Take somewhat cleaned cases. Spray with lanolin and iso alochol mixture. It seems that the lanolin does a well enuff job to prevent scratching of dies from leftover carbon, we shall see over rhe next 5 years though.
6. Run into 1st station to deprime via might armory deprimer
7. 2nd station with any sizer die of your preference (wont go into depth with that)
8. Take sized and deprimed dies and put into wet tumble pile.
9. Wet tumble brass
10. Dry and done, ready for trimming and whatever prep you wanna do before loading.
I used to wet tumble only, but i found if i wet tumble only, i end up having to wet tumble 2x since i needa get the lanolin off anyways. So it ends up being more work and wasted time of drying.
Hope that makes sense. Lemme know if you need clarification.