[maxtheaxe]

That's actually a kind of odd place for the string to break; they usually break at one of the stress points...saddle, sustain block, nut, etc. It could have simply been a defective string or maybe it got kinked during installation.

Another thing...unless your bridge is really, really decked (or a hardtail), bending a string a whole step will cause the bridge to pull up, forcing you to bend the string just that much more in order to arrive at the intended pitch.

If I have a bend like that, sometimes I palm the bridge (if possible) to hold it down while bending with fingers. My bridges are set up for mostly dive with very slight up-trem...floating just a bit. I mainly do it this way so the bridge doesn't smack the top of the guitar if I let go of the arm.