So, what I discovered. A shot of Dawn dish soap, some powdered Lemi-Shine, then mostly filled rotary barrel with warm water - NO pins - dumped in the pulled bullets - ran for about 10 minutes - all tarnish was gone - nice and shiny - no apparent damage to the exposed lead tips - I think the bullets are Hornady Spire Points 139 gr. and 162 gr. SPBT. A few bullets had started with some green coloured corrosion - was not removed - had gone "dark", but not gone. Added SS pins and the brass that the bullets had been pulled from, and some previously fired brass. Set timer for 2 hours. About half those bullets ended up pointy end first inside the previously fired cases, along with some pins - took some effort of shaking one by one to shake out the pins, around the bullet. For some, the bullet promptly fell out. Others were into the necks, but not falling out - pretty sure there was still a pin or two on the inside that was wedging the bullet in there - used a kinetic / inertial "hammer" style puller to get them out. Lead bullet tips vary from "new" looking to partially mushroomed over - I think the beat-up ones were getting most of their beating within the cases. So, from that episode, I would conclude just the Dawn and Lemi-Shine worked fine to remove tarnish; SS pins definitely clean off any corrosion that might be present, and really BAD idea to put bullets and previously fire brass into the same batch in a wet rotary tumbler!!!
An observation - these hand loads were from unknown source and are of uncertain age - the powder was a log-type powder of some sort. All the boat-tail bullets (162 SPBT) has significant "green" corrosion on the boat tail shoulders that would have been exposed to fumes(?) from the powder. Many, but not all of the Spire Point flat bases had less, but visible "green" on their very rear end - again where it would have been exposed to the fumes (?) from the powder. A slight difference in colour between the powders from the two loads, so possibly a different powder was used for the two bullet weights?? The powder was discarded once pulled and dumped from the cases. As well, all the primers were pushed out - about 1/4 of them showed significant "green" growth / buildup within the primer cup that would have been facing the powder. The primers were dropped into a small vial of motor oil and will be disposed of. There were no notes or markings to indicate what the loads were or when loaded - in same box of cartridges, I pulled out three different weights of bullets - the 175 grain Round Nose was obvious, but not much visual difference between 162 gr. SPBT and 139 SP when seated.
162 grain SPBT as pulled - note the corrosion on the boat tail where they would have been exposed to powder:
139 grain Spire Point - tarnish, but small amount of green on some bases:
The primers as removed - sitting on a plastic sheet on work bench - worst for corrosion in the lower left of picture.
