I have been faced with this same situation twice over the years, once with a stockmaker, and once on a complete build. In both cases the work took maybe 8-10 times longer than originally promised. In both cases the work was being done 1000+ miles away thus visiting them was not really an option.
In both cases, my solution was to make myself so much of a pain in the azz that they couldn't wait to get rid of me: call in the morning, call at night, call at lunch, call on the weekend. Tell them you told me X, please explain again why X isn't happening? In both cases it took me months of effort, but I eventually got all my stuff back, and we are talking about thousands of dollars of potential losses.
Good luck, yes it is very frustrating.
Was there nothing the ATF or Sheriffs department could do?
