I do, and the issue has a lot to do with the variety of the tree. If the trees fruit young they will be easy to manage within that space. Varieties such as Northern Spy and Golden Russet are more difficult. The depth and richness of the soil is equally influential.

The two things you can do to encourage more fruitful and less vegetative growth are branch spreading slightly above horizontal- with some varieties you have to keep on spreading as the branches keep turning upwards.

The second thing is to select your scaffolds from branches that are a third the diameter of the trunk or less at point of attachment to the trunk. This ratio differential goes a long ways to determining the relative vigor of the branch and how soon it settles into fruiting mode.

There are more complex strategies of attempting to limit root growth, but in this area, the most practical thing is just not to enrich the soil any more than necessary to keep the trees healthy and don't irrigate after spring once the trees have decent size unless they start to wilt.

great, that helps a lot, thank you. my standard varieties are zester, sweet sixteen, Cortland, frostbite, northwest greening, honeygold, and wolf river. I have decent soil, a sandy loam type, ph is 6.5.
Do you think I should top the tree to encourage more outward growth in the directions I want into my paths, or a vase type pruning? I really don't want them to get too tall and unmanageable.

I would keep them central leader for now- it allows you to use the trunk for pushing branches outward with spreaders, but it's up to you and many shapes will work.

A temporary central leader needn't mean a taller tree, you can eventually let the first tier be the only branches and the idea is for them to be dominant anyway. Meanwhile, just top it at 12' or so.

Or you can just go with the open center now and spread the branches some other way- like staking them to short posts.

Ultimately, the main point of a central leader apple tree is just trying to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of the orchard.

Those you mention that I know are pretty vigorous with the exception of Zestar, which fruits quite young and forms a relatively columnar tree- at least at first.

Trees are about 8 ft now, so I have another season to decide what I want to go with. I think central leader is probably what I will do just because I want that on my semi-dwarfs, and I would like the overall look of the trees to be the same.

I am not so concerned about productivity as of yet, since I have no idea what I am going to do with all the apples once my trees start producing (besides lots of juice for the kids, cider, and some fine eating), but I might as well get the most out of my trees and learn along the way.

Thanks for the advice!