Three methods are used to study the dislocation dynamics in α-brass. These are stress relaxation, double strain rate cycling and Lüders band propagation. All three methods yield similar values, 4 ± 1, for the dislocation velocity-stress exponent. In the four alloys studied, the internal stress accounts for 90–95% of the applied stress. The effective stress does not vary appreciably with strain suggesting that work hardening is mainly due to the increase of internal stress. For a given grain size and strain, the internal stress increases rapidly near 15% Zn, consistent with a change of dislocation arrangement at that composition.