What a lot of guys did, as someone said earlier, was take a Gibson Sonomatic set, the 12-56 one, throw away the 56 and use a 10 for the first string, which gave them 10-12-16-25(?)-34-44. Dicky Betts used to do this, which is similar to his Signature set now.
I've waited a long time to hear anything more specific than Dicky's late 70s [?] Guitar Player interview statement to the effect that he uses the heaviest strings he can play for a 3 hour concert.