Author: admin yep

http://img.youtube.com/vi/gg8gjO5pLps/0.jpgI have created a video to explain Laravel ecosystem items on the website with good visualizations.
It was becoming so long, so I decided to publish the first part for now.Laravel News Links

https://www.hibit.dev/images/social/2022/preview/laravel_ddd.png

<?php namespace App\Domain\Post\ValueObject;

use App\Domain\Shared\ValueObject\StringValueObject;

class Message extends StringValueObject
{
}

Laravel News Links

https://www.howtoforge.com/images/featured/aws-mysql-replica.pngAmazon RDS is an easy-to-set up AWS-managed database service. In this guide, we will see how to create a read replica of a MySql RDS database instance.Planet MySQL

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It’s a funny thing when the topic of database sizes comes up. Calling one small, medium, large, or even huge isn’t as straightforward as you’d think. Distinguishing the size of a database is based upon a number of factors whose characteristics can be classified as either “tangible”, things that you can measure in an objective manner, or “intangible”, those attributes best expressed using the catch-all phrase “it depends”. For example, a 2TB database is, to many people, a large database. On the other hand, a veteran DBA could describe a PostgreSQL database cluster as large when it enters the realm of Peta-Bytes.

Here’s a recap of some of PostgreSQL’s basic capabilities:

NB: Despite possible physical constraints one faces when creating large numbers of schema, there is no theoretical limitation to the number created in postgres.

I’ve come to differentiate a small database from a large one using the following caveats. And while it is true that some of the caveats for a large database can be applied to a small one, and vice-versa, the fact of the matter is that most of the setups out there in the wild follow these observations:

1. Small databases are often administered by a single person
2. Small databases can be managed manually.
3. Small databases are minimally tuned.
4. Small databases can typically tolerate production inefficiencies more than large ones.
5. Large databases are managed using automated tools.
6. Large databases must be constantly monitored and go through an active tuning life cycle.
7. Large databases require rapid response to imminent and ongoing production issues to maintain optimal performance.
8. Large databases are particularly sensitive to technical debt.

Large databases often bring up the following questions and issues:

• Is the system performance especially sensitive to changes in production load?
• Is the system performance especially sensitive to minor tuning effects?
• Are there large amounts of data churn?
• Does the database load system saturate your hardware’s capabilities?
• Do the maintenance activities, such as logical backups and repacking tables, take several days or even more than a week?
• Does your Disaster Recovery Protocol require having a very small Recovery Point Objective (RPO) or Recovery Time Objective (RTO)?

The key difference between a small vs large database is how they are administered:

1. Whereas it is common that small databases are manually administered, albeit it’s not best practice, using automation is the industry default mode of operation in many of these situations for large databases.
2. Because circumstances can change quickly, large databases are particularly sensitive to production issues.
3. Tuning is constantly evolving; while it is true that newly installed architectures are often well-tuned, circumstances change as they age and large databases are especially vulnerable.

Good planning is your friend: addressing potential issues for a large database by anticipating future conditions is the goal i.e. testing the entire infrastructure before it goes into production. 

Scripting your build environment using tools such as Ansible, Puppet, Terraform, etc. mitigates human error when provisioning the underlying infrastructure. It’s important to be able to build in a consistent and repeatable manner.

Once a database is in production it must be monitored and wired with alerts for the various critical thresholds. Aside from the standard errors, consider configuring your monitoring solution to follow the “Rule Of Three”. Select and watch only three metrics that track and alert for a specific “change of state”. This is not to be confused with following a particular issue, rather it is meant to inform you that you should pay attention to your system in order to understand that something has changed from what is considered normal behavior. Depending on your preferences you may want to watch for known production issues or when the system is stable you might be more interested in trending alerts such as query performance which have slowed below a predefined threshold.

In regards to system tuning: while small databases can, after a fashion, perform in a satisfactory manner using the default values large databases cannot. Configuring initial tuning parameters such as the shared_buffers etc is de rigueur but you should also monitor the environment in order to trend issues such as for example bloat and long-term query performance. Remember, the most common problem experienced by an otherwise stable and well-thought-out architecture is table and index bloat. Addressing bloat by tuning the autovacuum characteristics is essential.

Monitoring, especially before and after maintenance windows, is required because they can catch potential problems to the update before becoming production issues.

Pay close attention to following the regular maintenance activities during the life-cycle of your system:

• Logical backups and misc database redundancies
• Architectural evolution:
  • application stack updates, upgrades, and rollbacks
  • application/database scaling
• PostgreSQL server upgrades:
  • minor
  • major
• Database migrations
• Hardware upgrades
• Scaling the cluster by adding and removing server nodes

Maintenance activities such as logical backups and PostgreSQL minor upgrades are performed at regular intervals.

Plan for space utilization requirements of logical dumps and WAL archives.

In regards to logical backups: it can be difficult to justify backing up an entire database when it can take a week. Alternatively, differential backups are a potential solution. Backing up tables that are updated and deleted regularly can be archived at a faster frequency than the slower changing tables which can be stored without changes for a longer period of time. This approach however requires the appropriate architectural design considerations such as using table partitioning. 

An alternative to logical backups is to consider Copy On Write (COW), or stacked file systems, such as ZFS and BTRFS. Environments within containers for example can leverage snapshots and clones allowing for near-instant recoveries in a disaster recovery scenario.

Complex operations, such as hardware and database scaling, encompass many sub-activities and can often involve working with several teams at the same time. In this case, maintaining reference documentation is critical. Activities such as these are best tracked and planned in a Kanban, or Scrum, environment.

In regards to Disaster Recovery (DR) consider automating the following operations:

• Recovery via Logical backups
• Failover of a PRIMARY to a REPLICA
• Dropping/Building a new REPLICA
• Point In Time Recovery (PITR): rebuilding a cluster to a point in time

As an aside to PITR: instead of rebuilding an entire data cluster from scratch to a particular point in time, one can instead create a STANDBY host that is replicated on a delay and can be recovered to a particular point in time or promoted in its current state. Refer to run-time parameter recovery_min_apply_delay for more information.

In conclusion, while small databases can be managed by administrating in an ad hoc manner, the administration of a large database must always be performed using a more rigorous and conscientious approach. And what you learn from administering a large database can be carried over to administering a small one.

REFERENCES:

• https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/limits.html 
• https://www.percona.com/blog/2018/08/31/tuning-postgresql-database-parameters-to-optimize-performance/ 

Percona Database Performance Blog

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AppleInsider News

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http://img.youtube.com/vi/OmtLxnjMnlY/0.jpgIn SOLID, the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) states that "A class should have one and only one reason to change, meaning that a class should have only one job."Laravel News Links

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Quick Summary:

If you have landed on this blog post, that means you are looking for assistance to improve and enhance the performance of your existing Laravel application to get the best out of it. This blog post has covered the pro tips and tricks from the industry’s best Laravel developers and how to overcome the performance laybacks.

This blog post contains the ultimate Laravel performance optimization guide to go easy on your disillusioned mind and waver all the dark clouds of poor Laravel app performance. Read in-depth to learn about how to boost Laravel application performance and enhance the security of your existing application.

Introduction

We are working on a heavy Laravel website with many requests and structured query language/eloquent calls. There is high-CPU VPS and high memory still, we feel that there is a lot of room for performance improvement.

Laravel has become the first and foremost choice for building business-focused applications, including eCommerce platforms and information management systems.

We agree Laravel has grown by leaps and bounds, and it’s consistent finetune performance has again made it the best PHP framework of 2022. Laravel is a one-stop PHP development framework from simple web applications to complex APIs. A quick development approach, MVC architectural pattern, and a set of libraries make it convenient to build well-structured beautiful code.

As per Google Trends, Laravel has remained the most used and popular PHP framework over the last few years.

The framework has some outstanding functionalities that have made developers’ life easy. As you use Laravel in your project development, you must learn the tactics and tricks for PHP Laravel performance optimization in your application to get the maximum potential.

Laravel app optimizes easily, and that’s the best part of using this framework, as you can optimize your application whenever you feel it is needed to enhance its performance.

Importance of Website Speed

You might be wondering how it would matter if your website loads a second faster. It counts as much as a gold coin! Even a fraction of second matters if you want to hold on to your visitors for converting them into your clients.

The UI, search rankings, conversations, etc., make a difference in your website’s Google rankings. If your customers and visitors face a lag in performance over time, they will gradually stop using your site.

How to Ensure the Security of your Laravel Website?

The below provided Laravel website security best practices will ensure that you are safe from any threat.

Choose A Secure Server for Hosting

You should keep a regular backup of your website, use strong passwords, and complete authorization. Your website contains your users’ sensitive information; hence, you should not use shared servers. Before choosing your web server, you should check with your provider if they provide a secure connection, use SSH protocol and authentication, FTPS, SSL, private networks, and VPNs.

Update Your Website with The Latest Versions

Do not miss any improvements that the latest Laravel version brings out. Make sure that you use the most upgraded version of Laravel for your website. The latest version is Laravel 9. If you don’t upgrade, you might lack the essential features for your Laravel website.

Also, check out what’s new in Laravel 9 for more details about the fixes on bugs, security improvisations, and new features.

Update Modules, Packages, and Plugins

One thing is that you should use only the modules, plugins, and packages that your project requires and discard the others. Just updating your Laravel website to the latest version is not enough. You need to update all your project modules, packages, and plugins.

Check Firewall Settings

Your Laravel website should, very importantly, have a web application firewall that works as a filter and monitor for your HTTP application. Your web application firewall should be either a cloud-based solution or installed on your system.

Image Source: GitHub

You shall attain numerous benefits by having a firewall, such as protection from brute-force attacks, spambots, backdoor, SQL injection, DDOS, and other protections.

Make Use of HTTPS

When your web application uses HTTP, all your website information transmits in plain text, which is vulnerable to hackers and attacks.

Hence, it would help if you used HTTPS over HTTP, which will ensure your website’s information security.

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Hire Laravel developer from us to get the secure, digitally scalable, and highly tuned application.

Use In-built Laravel Security Features

Why search outside when you’ve got it inside? Yes, Laravel comes with an in-built authentication system to secure your website information. The Laravel framework takes care of the user authentication and gives only the needed access to each user.

Your website’s sensitive information remains confined to the users and does not go public. Secure it from SQL Injections User inputs like server variables, cookies, and input values like ‘GET’ and ‘POST’ can raise the vulnerability of SQL query injection.

To overcome this, you should use the Eloquent ORM of Laravel, which uses PDO binding to avoid SQL injection.

Validate and Filter Data

Before sending user data to your system in the form of queries, you must always filter and validate the data to prevent SQL injections firsthand.

Take Precautions during Mass Assignments

Mass assignments are a convenient feature when you want to enter a long list of variables.

However, we do not recommend it because cyber attackers can alter the data from the client-side, which is extremely vulnerable. You can either use $fillable or $guarded property but very cautiously without forgetting to add new fields to your model.

Reduce Laravel Vulnerabilities from CSRF Cross-Site Request Forgery

Laravel uses the CSRF tokens to assure no fake requests and that there is no intrusion.

Each user has their own CSRF token, and when the user makes any request, the Laravel system matches it with the previous user session token. Hence, you must add a hidden CSRF field while writing your HTML application.

Image Source: GitHub

To see all the above and some additional Laravel security tips in real action, check out this video from WebDevMatics. You will thoroughly enjoy it.

After getting a deep understanding of key points to consider to keep your application secure, now it’s time to understand why to focus on laravel performance optimization in 2022 and top Laravel performance optimization tips.

Why Focus on Laravel Performance Optimization?

You have surely created a Laravel application where the Laravel developers have used the PHP framework and essential libraries to bring out the maximum potential of your project idea. But, there’s always room for perfection and enhancements.

Mostly, businesses use Laravel to build their business information system, and hence the performance of their business is critically related to the performance of Laravel. To ensure smooth performance and deployment of your Laravel project, you should prioritize optimizing Laravel application for your business benefits.

The Laravel management information system enables you to take vital business decisions, and hence optimizing the performance of the Laravel app will surely enable improved business prospects.

Top Laravel Performance Optimization Tips For Your Application

1. Routes caching

If your Laravel application has many routes and configurations, then the php artisan route cache is an essential feature to speed up your Php app improvement.

Run the listed below command to cache the routes.php file

php artisan route: cache

At the time of using closures, the artisan command hurls an exclusion. When we even try to compile the routes, it is suggested to interchange with the controllers.

It is similar to the config cache. The changes you amend in routes.php will not have a favorable effect once you cache it. If you want to refresh the routes cache, you can run the above code again. But if you want to clear the routes cache, run the below code.

php artisan route: clear

2. Use Artisan Commands Effectively

Laravel comes with extra perks when it comes to boosting performance

1. php artisan config:cache
2.
3. php artisan route:cache
4. 
5. // Note: Artisan Optimize was removed in laravel 5.5; this works in previous versions.
6. php artisan optimize --force

Commands are beneficial when you are using so many configurations and route files. Tip: Make sure to clear cache after changes.

1. php artisan config:clear
2. 
3. php artisan route:cache
4.  
5. php artisan view:clear

3. Use the Deployment tool to Appeal to All Commands

We know it cannot be considered a performance tip, but it will help you reduce your time, and that matters. A deployer is a deployment tool, and if you have ever used composer to handle your project dependencies, you’ll feel so right. Deployer can be deployed to Laravel application as its seeds, optimization, and migrations with one command.

php deployer.phar deploy production

4. Eager Loading

The most common issue of retrieving eloquent relationships is the N+1 query problem. Let me help you understand this scenario with two different models of flats and their owners. Consider if you want to retrieve their owners, and to achieve that, you will be required to run the following code:

$cars = App\Flat::all();
 
    foreach ($flats as $flat) {
      echo $flat->owner->name;
    }

It will help you execute one query to find out all of the flats from the database, and another query will help you find out the owners. Let’s move forward with the image, we have 100 flats, and this loop requires 101 queries: one for the flat and an additional to find out the owner of each car. Does it sound so common because we are using a small database? But, We want you to imagine a large dataset and queries to imagine the actual picture.

To overcome this problem, We prefer to use eager loading.

$flats = App\Flat::with('owner')->get();
 
    foreach ($flats as $flat) {
      echo $flat->owner->name;
    }

You can reduce the operation to just two queries by running the above code.

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5. Queues

How about using Queues to improve the application. The image you have developed is an application that sends a welcome email to new users upon signing up. It makes use of third-party email services such as Mailgun. A new user record will be inserted into the database, so a call is redirected to the Maligun to send a welcome email.

This third-party email may take a few seconds, so the user might think that the sign-up process is slow. You can use Queue to send an email and run it as a background task. The code might be lookalike below:

public function register(Request $request)
    {
      // validate form inputs
      $this->validator($request->all())->validate();
 
      // persist user to database
      $user = $this->create($request->all());
 
      // send welcome email
      Mail::to($user)->send(new WelcomeEmail($user));
 
      // log user in
      $this->guard()->login($user);
 
      return $this->registered($request, $user) ?: redirect($this->redirectPath());
    }

Running this code will improve the application’s performance and enhance the user experience.

6. Leverage JIT Compiler

PHP is a computer machine and server-side language. It does not comprehend PHP code natively. Usually, the programmers use a compiler to compile the code into bytecode and interpret the PHP code. The program compilation procedure affects Laravel application performance and the user experience. SO, Laravel programmers can use Zend Engine, which comes with the just-in-time compiler, to compile the code quickly and at once.

7. Compress Images

If your Laravel application contains many images, you should compress all of them to optimize the performance. There are some ways to do the optimization. However, different images require different tools to maintain their quality and resolution of images.

If you use Laravel Mix, it is advisable to use an NPM package like ImageMin while compiling your images. For a very large image, try TinyPNG to compress the image first and then use ImageMin to compress it as much as possible.

8. Classmap optimization

A smart trick to keep your Laravel app compact and ready for easy loading should keep all your inclusive files together. As you want to include multiple files in your application, you just need to call and have one common file.

Such a move will fasten your Laravel application by including several files in a combined file for loading into your application.

9. Precompile Assets

Developers will always maintain the right development environment by keeping different assets needed in your application separate. Though this is a good practice, it is not mandatory for production scenarios. And sure, Laravel has in-build artisan commands that can help you with this bifurcation.

php artisn optimize
php artisn config: cache
php artisan route: cache

Laravel will automatically classify your most used classes and keep them in a single file using the above commands.

10. Assets Bundling

All Laravel applications are accompanied by the instrumental Laravel Mix, which effectively builds your application API from Webpack. Laravel Mix consists of common CSS and Javascript preprocessors that offer you script, styles, and other compilations.

For example, if you want some set of specific style formats for your application file, like:

mix.styles([
  'public/css/vendor/normalize.css',
 'public/css/styles.css'
], 'public/css/all.css');

Using Laravel Mix, your application will auto-create an all.css file from normalize.css and style.css. Hence, you can merge both the style sheets within a single all.css file instead of retrieving them individually. This hack will improve Laravel application performance.

11. Assets minifying

Your loading file turns huge when you implement the above performance optimization tip by compiling assets in one file. To overcome this issue, you may use the following command:

$ npm run production

Conclusion

We hope you liked the Laravel performance checklist for Laravel performance optimization. You must surely take a Laravel performance analysis and find out on your own which tips and tricks will help you have a great optimized app. We host skillfully experienced Laravel application developers who assure you of the fastest responding business apps.

To improve the Laravel performance tuning of your Laravel application, hire Laravel developers from us, to get the job done at your convenience.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Easy steps to ensure Laravel website speedy performance are clearing cache(config & routing), using minimal and essential packages only, eager loading, and fetching the bare minimum database queries.

Below is the list of points to consider to reduce page load time in Laravel:

• Always use the latest Laravel version.
• Follow the practice of using Artisan Commands.
• Use packages that suit your application.
• Routes Caching and Config Caching.

Config caching is the best way to decrease memory usage in your laravel application. Database chunking is also a way to reduce memory usage.

Eloquent ORM (Object Relational Mapper ) is included within Laravel, which provides simple and attractive data implementation while working on a Database.

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Of all of the firearms in our arsenal, the handgun can be the most challenging to master. It is small with a short sight radius and generally has a trigger that requires more pressure than the gun weighs. Almost always found with “open sights,” mastering a handgun requires mastering many moving parts. Fear not though, because by dividing handgun shooting into a few sections, we can do pistol shooting drills to improve our overall shooting.

Trigger Control

We often hear the phrase “trigger control” used when discussions of accuracy arise. Few times, however, is it given sufficient attention. The truth is that pistols for the most part are accurate. It’s our manipulation of the weapon that interferes with its ultimate capability. Here are some solid trigger control drills to help you improve.

• RELATED STORY: 6 Tips For Improved Trigger Pull with Rob Leatham

Pistol Shooting Drill #1: Brass On The Front Sight

This is always easier with the help of a partner. Start by unloading your weapon and remove the magazine if possible. Reset the action on your pistol and have your partner balance a piece of spent brass on the front sight. Now, execute a smooth, clean press of the trigger. If you do this correctly, the front sight will not dip or move and the brass will stay in place. If the brass falls off, you are generally jerking the trigger and causing movement in the gun. That movement translates into missed shots. The key to keeping the brass steady is a smooth, continuous trigger press with a clean “break” at the end.

Pistol Shooting Drill #2: Keep the Slack Out

The more we move the trigger, the higher the probability that we will miss our shot. The trigger press is composed of three stages:

1. The Slop – The distance the trigger travels to the rear before you encounter resistance.
2. The Slack – The distance the trigger will still travel while under tension prior to firing.
3. The Shot – Where the trigger finishes its travel and ultimately fires the weapon.

In our initial press of the trigger, we will experience all three stages of the trigger motion. However, after the initial press, the trigger will reset. The distance required for reset generally takes it only as far as our “slack” point. Do not allow the trigger to travel any further forward than necessary.

Pistol Shooting Drill #3: Empty Your Weapon and Press the Trigger

With your support-side hand, rack the slide and, as it is moving forward, relax your trigger finger. The tension of the trigger will push forward and allow it to reset. Only let the trigger move as far forward as it has to. Continuous dry-fire practice with this drill will familiarize you with how far your trigger needs to travel. We always look to avoid letting the trigger move all the way forward or having our trigger finger coming off. This generally ends up in a “slap” of the trigger on subsequent shots, which will interfere with accuracy.

Pistol Shooting Drill #4: Pencil Drill

Another common problem regarding the trigger is when it is not pressed directly to the rear. Many times, the firing-side hand over-grips the gun and causes the finger to arc as the trigger is pressed. This is called smearing the trigger and usually ends up causing shots to break to the support side. The trigger should be pressed with a direct and careful motion. A great pistol shooting drill to practice this is to place a pencil on the web of your thumb with the eraser on your trigger finger. Slowly and smoothly press the pencil toward you with the intention of keeping it on the web of the thumb. This drill will not only help you visualize a good press but can also create strong habits.

Follow-Through

Follow-through is the act of maintaining a steady platform to send follow-up shots on target. The challenge comes in the form of anticipation or flinch. Especially true with newer shooters, the anticipation of the next shot can cause a flinch response to the weapon. This causes muzzle dip, which never helps accuracy. Two proven drills to deal with this challenge are these:

Pistol Shooting Drill #5: Ball and Dummy

One of the most classic pistol drills, the Ball and Dummy drill is designed to help eliminate flinch. The drill is generally done with a partner to assist. While the shooter is turned away, the partner will place their weapon in a state of readiness. It will either be set with a round in the chamber or reset without a round. Either way, the trigger will function. The shooter is turned back around and given the weapon. They point in and press as if they were shooting a bullseye. If the weapon is unloaded, the trigger will click yet the muzzle should not dip. If there is a noticeable dip, it is a sign of anticipating the shot. Continue this drill with an occasional live round placed in the chamber so as to keep the shooter off-balance. Approximately 75 percent of the time it should be empty, however. This is a solid drill for learning to overcome the anticipation of the shot firing.

Pistol Shooting Drill #6: Single-Shot Drill

Similar to the Ball and Dummy drill, this exercise works on eliminating shot anticipation. This drill can be practiced without any assistance, making it easy to manage. Load one round into the weapon and then remove the magazine. Point in and fire the round on target. Settle in for a second shot and press the trigger. Watch your front sight intently for signs of dipping. This is equally effective as a tool for self-diagnosis.

Sight Picture & Alignment

There are many theories and methods of shooting when it comes to the sights. At the most fundamental and reliable level, though, we look to align the sights on target while intently focusing on the front sight. The rear sights should be slightly blurry as will be the target. The front sight should be crystal clear. Here are a few reliable drills to build confidence.

Pistol Shooting Drill #7: Bench Shooting

One of the best ways to learn certain components of shooting is to minimize the need to focus on other parts. By shooting from a benched position, you are able to eliminate the need to stabilize yourself in order to make good shots. This is a confidence builder as well as a drill to help you build good sight alignment habits. Sit at a bench with your arms resting on a shooting bag. Acquire a solid sight picture and alignment. Take your time and fire shots with the intent of managing perfect sights throughout the process.

Pistol Shooting Drill #8: Figure-8 Drill

One of the challenges we face is the feeling that our sights are all over the place as we begin to make a shot. For the most part, that is just our perception and not reality. With good mechanics, you can make accurate shots consistently. A drill to show you this, as well as to work on trigger control, is the Figure-8 drill. At about 6 yards, point in at your target, then take all of the slop and slack out of the trigger. Intentionally move the front sight 6 to 8 inches in a figure-8 over the bullseye. Now, as you come across the bullseye, break your shot and reset your trigger to shoot again. Continue this for 5 or 6 shots. What you will find is that you are much more accurate than you may think. By managing the trigger well, it allows for quite a bit of motion while still maintaining good accuracy.

Master Class

The goal is always to bring these components together. Unless you are a static bullseye shooter, there will be many moving parts to making a shot. Here are a few drills designed to start mixing components without overwhelming yourself.

Pistol Shooting Drill #9: Ragged Hole Drill

The Ragged Hole drill is another classic. From 6 yards, you will slow-fire 5 rounds into a single point on your target. Do your best to focus on a small portion of the target. Better yet, get a target that has 1- to 2-inch dots on it as focal points. Take your time and use the exact same point of aim each time. Do not chase your shots or try to make corrections. If you manage your trigger and sights well, you should end up with a single, ragged hole. If your shots are spread out, it is a sign that you need to polish up on one or more of the basics.

Pistol Shooting Drill #10: Shrinking Targets 

Similar to the Ragged Hole drill, the goal here is to start shrinking your shot groups. Find or make a target that has 3 or 4 circles on it, each a little smaller than the previous one. From 6 yards, fire 5 rounds into each circle. The goal is to have all the rounds inside the circle. As you master one circle, move to the next smaller one, and so on. This is as much a confidence builder as it is a skill builder.

Pistol Shooting Drill #11: Single Shot From Draw

Our final drill starts to bring all of the fundamentals together. From a holstered position, smoothly draw your weapon and fire one round onto a bullseye. Do good after-action drills, then reholster. Repeat this 10 times and then reset yourself. The goal is to be able to shoot solid shots while mixing in the motion of drawing. If your groups begin to open up, slow down. If you are shooting ragged holes, then strive to increase your pace. This is a solid drill to start mixing the fundamentals.

Shooting a handgun can be a frustrating challenge. One minute you are shooting bullseyes and the next you are off. As with all shooting, it always comes back to the fundamentals. By practicing these pistol shooting drills, you can improve individual skills and ultimately bring them all together.

• RELATED STORY: Rifling 101: Understanding Twist Rate Basics

The post 11 Pistol Shooting Drills to Improve Accuracy appeared first on Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews.

Tactical Life Gun Magazine: Gun News and Gun Reviews

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Time to do a report on a war theater where heavily armored vehicles shoot it out with each other in city streets: Mexico.

(You were thinking Ukraine? Probably an update on that next week.)

Cartel violence waxes and wanes, and regular readers know that the cartels are heavily armed. Even so, it may come as a shock to many that Mexican drug cartels have their own “tanks” (AKA “Monstruo”), i.e. up-armored civilian vehicles more accurately described as technicals or armored cars.

Mexican police recently captured one in Jalisco.

Mexico’s Guardia Nacional in Jalisco have captured a homemade ‘narco tank’ thought to be used by one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels.

The officials shared the news to Twitter after it was found in the area of Jalisco on 12 April.

According to the Mexican police, the vehicle was harbouring 2,000 rounds of ammunition.

In Texas, we call that “a good start.”

The heavy metal plated vehicle is thought to be owned by the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion [CJNG], who operate in the area, as reported by The Star.

Painted green to blend in with surroundings, the tank is heavily armoured, with protective metal casing around the driver’s sider.

Publication Borderland Beat noted that the tank was discovered while being transported inside of a trailer.

The trailer limitation is probably why it seems unusually narrow.

En #Jalisco, la #GuardiaNacional aseguró un vehículo con blindaje artesanal y alrededor de dos mil cartuchos útiles que fueron localizados al interior de un tractocamión, como resultado de los recorridos para inhibir hechos delictivos en el municipio de Jamay. pic.twitter.com/jLgKnf5eqh

— Guardia Nacional (@GN_MEXICO_) April 13, 2022

Here’s a video covering various captured cartel narco tanks (though the voice-over isn’t the best).

Here’s a shorter video from several years ago showing various monstruos, mainly from the 2010-2011 timeframe.

This video shows still more footage, including (about 1:50 in) modern CJNG vehicles that not only look more professionally constructed, but have red-blue flashing lights and a cartel logo on the side, which does rather suggest they’re not trying to keep a low profile. Also includes combat footage of CJNG blowing away Northeast Cartel (CDN) rivals through their own gunholes.

Here’s a tweet that shows video of two other captured Nueva Generacion vehicles in 2019:

"Elements of the Mexican Army, seized several armored vehicles in a workshop allegedly used by members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The events took place in the municipality of Tuxpan, in the state of Jalisco."

A behemoth of a ‘narco tank’ pic.twitter.com/auzhR6aMXh

— 𝙙00𝙙 (@just_some_d00d) December 21, 2019

And here’s one with a handy diagram:

For context:
The "Narco tank" or monstruo (Monster) is an improvised fighting vehicle used by drug cartels. pic.twitter.com/aFjeKCoLnK

— Cj comms open 1/6 slots (@ShiijeiKun) February 21, 2022

Some enterprising hobby company could probably sell models of these things…

Lawrence Person’s BattleSwarm Blog