Some time back I got in on the midway surplus deal, and wasn't thrilled with the looks of the ammo - although I'm certain it's fine.
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I'll have some folks shooting it for a charity event, and most would like to keep their brass.  I know this stuff cleans up fine after the fact, but would it be safe to use Brasso and a rag to polish the rounds before they shoot?  That way the spent brass will look more appealing without any elbow grease.

TIA!

I'd say NO NEVER using brasso to polish brass cases. Weakens brass from the ammonia in it. Your fired brass may be reloaded by someone some day? I think your brass looks fine and it looks more military than commercial. But if you insist with a LOT of elbow grease, Dillon's Rapid Polish 290 with a rag will polish brass. But it won't have that original look.

I've hand polished ammo many times in the past. Just get a rag and any metal or mag wheel polish will work fine.

A couple of swipes with stainless steel wool has worked for me.

Mother's works pretty good and it doesn't have ammonia as far as I know.Mother's

Iosso Case Polish.
No ammonia and no smell.

Thanks for all the advice folks!  Sounds like I'll be trying to find some Iosso Case Polish and see how much elbow grease is involved to decide whether to pre-polish the cases or not.  Very much appreciate the info!

Several years ago I purchased a large quantity of very dirty 50BMG ammo. I cleaned it 300 rounds at a time in corncob media in a cement mixer. It shot well, did not rough up the chamber, and was a good gift to other shooters as fired brass. (Berdan-primed)

What he said. I've tossed dirty BMG in a tumbler with cob media. Works great. Many folks are iffy about tumbling live ammo, but the concerns are mostly unfounded.

I know personally a man who blew up a 50 cal at a machine gun shoot with old 50 cal ammo that the vendor had tumbled to make look new while it was loaded. One of the bottom rivet chunks nearly went thru his leg. The top cover missed another shooters head by inches. It was extremely extremely bad kaboom. We pulled a couple of the rounds not fired a few days after and all the powder shapes had turned to a fine powder from tumbling and were pretty sure that's what caused it. I would strongly recommend no one try to clean loaded rounds period ever as I have seen first hand people nearly die from it.

All manufacturing companies tumble ammo at certain stages of completion.

Non-military ammo gets tumbled more to make it look nice. Tests for change in components (powder) have proven that when it is not tumbled EXCESSIVELY, no measurable change occurs.

Think about where powder is produced, how it is loaded into canisters, how it is shipped to distributors, how it is shipped to your dealer, how your dealer displays and handles it, how you look at it & buy it & drive it home & put on your reloading bench & load into cartridges & store before use.

Then tell me how 15 minutes of vibration in a tumbler will damage the powder. Remember the statement above: "tumbled EXCESSIVELY". If you put in a tumbler and vibrate excessively, change MAY occur. If you put it in a cement mixer in a manner that allows the loaded round to slide thru the media (lots of media = nearly full), then no measurable change will occur.

But there are always stories out there that relate to how a change in components causes a KaBoom.

In reverse, I had a Squib load which caused a projectile to be stuck in bore of rifle. After waiting a large amount of time (2 minutes), I withdrew the bolt and cartridge from action. Dumping the case onto the table, it displayed a large amount of powder that did not burn. Explain to me how a small amount of powder will burn pushing projectile out into rifling, but yet the main charge looked dark and clumpy(246 grains of RL-50). These cases were not tumbled after loading as they were MATCH loadings.

TNW surplus 'blaster ammo' from back in 2005

I put loaded ammo in my vibratory cleaner when I'm finished, to remove lube, and shine it up. There are no issues unless you vibrate it for some crazy amount of time. The newer rotating tumblers with ss media and NO liquid, would prob work well with no issues as it's a lot gentler vibration wise.

the ammo doesn't look too bad at all.

I'd just shoot it as is.
No need to commit that extra elbow grease and potential safety risk to make it pretty.

I've taken a scotch brite pad and just give the rounds a quick twist or 2 to get most tarnish or a bit of rust from the mg links off.
Only by hand, never used a pad on a drill or anything powered.

Run it in a vibratory tumbler with some corn cob media. There was a thread here, now in the archives for sure, where a guy ran ammo for 200 hours in a tumbler and there was no noticeable change. He even looked at the powder flakes through a microscope and there was no change.

Honestly, that ammo looks fine and just like every other mil-spec. round I have seen.

my $0.02 - leave it as is, shoot it and let people take home a real souvenir rather than a shined up trinket. The annealing marks, splatter of sealant and factory scale will mix with the carbon residue to give it a legit "battlefield" look.