Saw a guy pull it past the shelf once, and wind up with the arrow braced against the riser. It was compound. - as you can imagine the tension on the arrow was tremendous-- but this was nothing compared to the tension created when he started waving it around in a 360 deg. circle so he could show everybody the,"freaky, funny" thing that had happened. Guys were diving into the ground, like somebody had thrown a gernade. Caused alot of screaming/howerling/cussing/swearing/wimpering,etc. Yep, what we had here was a WORLD Class DUFUS. Didn't have the sense God gave a donut. Anyway, just don't over pull, you can wind up in some dicy situation. Youve been shooting like this long enough with out a prob. its unlikely you ever will. I have known guys that pulled into the shelf a little less than 1/2 and never had a prob. Not me man, Iam w/Bjorn on this one--I leave 'em long too. Its an old school thing. Don't want to accidently put a Broadhead on one of those short arrows. -Bad things can happen.