How can I control the blend times for anim montages?

I have a montage that has blend times of 0.25 seconds, but my animation sequence that is being played is only about 0.5 seconds so it’s like it’s not even being played. Is it possible to force the engine to fully blend into the montage pose before the sequence actually starts playing? I also can’t change the blend times to 0 or anything too small because then the transition is all choppy.