AR pistol

[DDM4556]

You are not missing anything.
You have a single shot spikes AR pistol.
It's illegal to convert it to semi-auto after about 2013 or whenever the law changed that banned the conversion of off-roster single shots into semi-autos.
Hopefully you converted it to a semi-auto before that law changed.

Thank you. I did.

[enavother]

You are not missing anything.
You have a single shot spikes AR pistol.
It's illegal to convert it to semi-auto after about 2013 or whenever the law changed that banned the conversion of off-roster single shots into semi-autos.
Hopefully you converted it to a semi-auto before that law changed.

Does the CA7 follow a different guideline by being on the roster?

[ar15barrels]

Does the CA7 follow a different guideline by being on the roster?

Yes.
It's not a single shot.
It's a magazine fed bolt action.

[Quiet]

You can also get them as a California resident on military orders out of state. Those military folks which are in the hundreds of thousands are also roster exempt while out of California. So it's not just LEO. It's LEO and US Military on orders.

You can literally use your California True ID driver license to purchase a fully automatic M16 if you want or any AR pistol you want.

Let's say they are a CA resident, on orders out of state, procure as much as they like while out of state, and then want to move back to CA with said off roster AR pistols (or other off roster handguns). What legal/paperwork process do they need to go through?

Starting 01-01-2015, the CA resident can no longer legally bring back firearms they acquired while out-of-state, unless it is imported and transfer to them through a CA FFL dealer. [PC 27585(a)]

Failure to utilize a CA FFL dealer equates to a misdemeanor per long gun [PC 27590(a)] and a felony per handgun [PC 27590(c)(7)].

Firearms that are imported into CA must be CA legal and can not include any large capacity magazines.
In addition, if the firearm is a handgun, then it must be listed on the Roster of Handguns Certified for Sale or be exempt from it (C&R, OTP, SAE, SSE2).
^CA DROS system will not allow a CA resident to import a non-exempt off-Roster handgun.

[LJ Guns]

^^^^not exactly. Military with permanent duty station orders don't fall under this. Same reason a NON CA resident, in the military with permanent duty station orders IN CA, can legally purchase firearms here.