There are some honest, law-abiding agents at BATFE,

and then there are the rest:
The dispute is over a part he submitted to the agency that he is proposing for an existing line of legal machine guns in the U.S. The part would convert the weapons to operate with ammunition that costs 1 or 2 cents per shell, instead of 25 cents or more...

Savage said he submitted the part to the BATFE, even though it technically was not a gun, and was stunned to get a response that not only was his repair part a gun, it was a machine gun, and he had only hours to "register" it properly.
Why?
[A]ll it took was some metal, a length of chain, some duct tape and some plastic wire ties for the federal inspectors to make his gun part operate in that fashion, he said he was told.
Which means they can say "All it took to turn your 10/22 into a machine gun was some tape, zip ties, wire and an electric motor; therefore we arrest it for being an unregistered machine gun." After which they'll come after you.
I just got of the phone with Dahil Goss, Assistant United States Attorney from Northern District of Georgia. She has informed me that a complaint against the firearm I submitted to ATF's Firearms Technology Branch, who then then seized, has been filed.

I asked if a summons with attached complaint had been mailed or served upon me. She informed me that no in fact no attempt to serve me has been made. The arrest warrant has been issued for the firearm, she explained that it would take ATF 1-2 weeks to proceed with "legal fiction" [her term, not mine] and serve the arrest warrant on the firearm. She thought the arrest would occur in Martinsburg West Virginia at FTB, I was under the understanding that the firearm was in the ATF Atlanta office. I can only hope the firearm does not evade arrest if found in one place when going to arrest it in another?

Next time BATFE comes to Congress with its hand out, it should be slapped away and their budget cut; because if they've got the time/money/people to do crap like this, then obviously they have far too much money and too many people and too much free time to play with.