How do you get the high glossy shine on tumbled rocks?

For the soap burnish, I am using ivory soap. I am going through three stages of grit plus titanium oxide polish. The fine grit is 500F. I am cleaning between stages completely. I am allowing about 200,000 to 250,000 revolutions per stage (about 1 week) each.

Are you using a soap burnish?

http://rocktumbler.com/tips/burnishing/

And are you doing all the full steps, including the EXTRA fine grit / pre-polish, etc.

http://www.gemstonesadvisor.com/rock-tumbling-free...

Are you cleaning the tumbler in between, so no grit remains to dull the shine?

Are you doing each step long enough? Sometimes, patience and repetition will get the job done.

I would guess if you want a higher polish 500F is not fine enough - as I recall (sort of) when polishing blown glass pieces, 2000 is the final step.

You go to successively finer grit.