The point of an Appleseed is to teach you to shoot whatever you have on hand. Any rifle,any sights and a sling is not required but it does help you in shooting.
At some Appleseeds, 25 Meters is all the shooting you will do because a longer range is not at hand.
The ones that have longer ranges are fewer than the ones that do not.
Good adjustable peep sights are nice but scopes or other sights will work.
I have seen AK's, SKS's, lever actions, bolt actions and semi's including .22LR's used by different people.
The thing is to learn to shoot no matter what you use. Go to this link and find out all about Appleseeds
http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php