Yes, TC's CS was horrendous right after the takeover from what I have heard. And their products suffered for a bit as well. For a good while it was dang near a crap shoot whether or not you got a decent shooting barrel. From all I have seen though, they finally righted the ship and people are starting to get the old quality they always got from TC in the years past. Pretty much the identical story with Marlin as well. Though their reasons for quality drop was because of old worn out machinery and tooling and quality was suffering even before the takeover.