The first step in reloading for most folks is to get a supply of brass ready. If you have any desire to reload, start saving your brass immediately. I could kick myself for all the brass I’ve thrown away but such is life.
Unless you are buying new brass, you are probably saving your own or picking up “free range” brass at your gun range. The first step is to sort the brass. I like using an old lunch tray. I typically use large plastic coffee cans into which I sort the various cases. Kevin reloads .40S&W, Glyn reloads his beloved .38 Super and I reload 9mm, .45acp and .223 Remington. The rest goes in the trash. There are usually some aluminum and steel cases in there also and those are discarded as well. I try and knock the dirt and sand out as I sort them. If a case is really gunked up or damaged I will discard it. Resizing dies can work miracles on a misshapen case but I would rather toss them than deal with the possible problems and wear on the die.
When I have a fair amount of one type of brass, or I simply need more for reloading, I move to the cleaning phase. I like to use those nylon lingerie laundry bags for this step. They can be found at any dollar store for a couple of bucks. I dump about 500 rounds of 9mm (about 300 .45) into the bag while holding it over a trash can. I then proceed to hold the bag by either end and then lift each end alternately, kind of like you do with a slinky. This causes the cases to tumble back and forth which dislodges most of the remaining dirt and debris. Once I see little or no more stuff falling out the bottom, I dip the bag into a bucket with cleaning solution in it. I really like the Birchwood Casey Brass Cleaner solution. You mix 1/2 bottle with 1 gallon of hot water and it’s ready. I do the slinky routine with the bag while it is in the cleaning solution and let it sit for 3 minutes. I normally slinky them a couple of times during that 3 minutes then I lift the bag out of the solution and slinky it several more times to get the solution out of the cases.
After the cleaning solution I normally dip the bag into a sink full of clean hot water. I then slinky the bag a bunch of times but this time I am lifting the bag out of the water each time, then once the cases have tumbled to one end I dunk them again. Then I drain the water out of the sink and empty the bag into a colander. I use a plastic one because it makes less noise. A word of caution: the cleaning solution is non-toxic but it does etch metal so don’t put it in a metal container and do NOT leave the cases in there longer than three minutes. If you do it really weakens the brass. You can tell because it looks really dull.
With the cases in the colander, I rinse the brass with a sprayer while mixing them around with my free hand. Yes, that’s a lot of rinsing but it gets all the cleaning solution out of the cases and that’s the goal. I then turn off the water and continue mixing the cases, then I begin drying them with a hair dryer. I don’t try to get them completely dry, only mostly dry and the cases hot. This makes them dry out on their own pretty quickly.
I then remove the cases from the colander and stand them on the kitchen counter so they can finish drying out. If you shake the colander, the cases will tend to orient themselves case mouth-up. This makes it easy to grab them 5-10 at a time and set them down in the right orientation. I then usually repeat this process with another bag of brass so that I have about 1k cases on the counter.
As you have no doubt deduced by now, I am not married 😉
This process takes about 20 minutes total. I then leave the cases for about an hour to dry out thoroughly. If there’s a lot of moisture on the counter I will use the hair-dryer to blow down on the cases while slightly moving them around with my free hand.
Once the cases are dry, they could be reloaded at that point but I like my brass to be really clean and really shiny so I then put them in a vibratory cleaner for a couple of hours. My RCBS cleaner holds about 500 9mm cases. I use the Lyman’s Green treated corncob media. It works great and there is no dust like with the walnut stuff.
When the cleaner’s timer goes off I dump the contents into a neat little device from Frankford Arsenal called a Standard Media Separator. It sits down inside a five gallon bucket. It has holes to allow the cleaning media to fall through but not the brass. (NOTE: the item in question is the one on the right on the linked page). I then dump the remaining brass into an RCBS media separator that tumbles off the remaining bits of cleaning media. You really do want all of that stuff gone because if there’s any left, it will clog the case feeder on your press. Trust me on this one.
I then place the finished brass into a suitable storage device until it is needed. I like to use clear plastic storage boxes, about shoebox size. This allows me to see the brass so I can tell what type it is and also how much is left.
This might sound like a lot of work but really it isn’t. Once you get the process grooved, it takes little time or effort. Mostly it’s a matter of managing She Who Must Be Obeyed while you invade the kitchen, but I can’t help you guys on that one.
Firearms4u 
Update: I have had a recent rash of problems with mil-surp brass and have decided not to use it. The primer crimp is just too aggressive, resulting in deformed primers. It is obvious when this happens as the crimping portion of the stroke is abnormal. Given the low success rate of the finished rounds, I have since begun removing all mil-surp brass during the cleaning process.
The good news is that the same problem does not exist with commercial brass having the mil-crimp.
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