Digital BW, The Print

Am I trying to do the impossible by making my 1280 print onto the last half inch or so of my fine art paper stock? I recently have had increasing issues trying to print onto 8.5 by 11 paper using the default QTR border setting, which seems to place the image to within 1/8 inch (3-4mm) or so of the end of the sheet. Recently, particularly with the PhotoRag papers, it seems like my print head is catching on the corner of the paper starting at about the last half inch (12-13mm) - leaving ugly smears of ink on the edges, crinkling the corners of the paper, and going out of registration in the image area. 

Do others have this experience? Should I just adjust my image area to avoid this last half inch, or is something broken?

Thanks,
Chris