I don't know if your plan is flawed or not, but I do know that when I have turned to internet forums, American's, in particular, are so anxious to be as negative as possible that they provide drastically, flat-out-wrong information. I hate to say it, but go elsewhere for your information.
In your case, the BATF MAY be the right place, and not just one local officer, but move up the food chain some, is what you want to check with. In my case, I wanted to export gun parts, and the info on forums was uniformly WRONG. Then the BATF was also wrong - BATF has ZERO jurisdiction but two different field offices didn't even know that! The third field office knew they didn't have jurisdiction but didn't know who did (true story!). If BATF isn't correct, then it may be Customs. But you gotta find someone that knows and then you have to double check them - cuz they might not know they don't know.
In my case, the solution came from emailing a US senator and they put me on to the State Department and there, the answer was crystal clear.
Actually, he got exactly what he needed to know, right here.
Darned negative Americans.
Best,
Ted
