Some of you here might have heard of the gigantic handguns - or very short and equally Paul Bunyan-like carbines - that come under the category of Bollerschuetzen.
Often with bores approaching a couple of inches, and loaded up with a 'few hundred grains or so' of cannon powder, these 'salute guns' are shot up in the air to celebrate any special occasion imaginable here it's Christmas, but it equally be a birthday, birth or wedding - sometimes just for the fun of it - in the Bavarian Tyrol.
I'll let you be the judge of how much fun it can be, making noise and using up a year's worth of powder in a few minutes...
Watch -
Funny thing about those law abiding Germans, they didn't follow them all. When I was there years ago my German friend's father showed me a Luger that wasn't on the books. My German friend's cousin offered to give me his late father's Browning FN .22 Automatic (SA22) that wasn't on the books rather than see it remain hidden away and never used again. He thought since I was an American I could stick it in my bag and just take it home. Sorriest story was from my friend's old retired gunsmith Uncle who had built a Drilling as his Masterpiece at the end of his apprenticeship to become a Master Gunsmith. Rather than jump thru expensive stringent licensing and storage laws he surrendered it be destroyed
God bless America 
