M1 Carbine
1) Reliability. I'd like to pass this rifle on later, or at least take my daughter shooting when she's twelve. Which is another 11+ years. This would be great for your Daughter to shoot. Its know for its Reliability.
2) Accuracy. Good enough not to have others laugh at you, in fact i bet you have a crowd around you just watching you shoot it.
3) Ease of cleaning. Yep
4) Cost. so it needs to be $1k or less. CMP has them for 500, there sold out now, but have many more to come, or buy new for 700 still under 1k
5) Legal in California. Yep, shipped to your door
6) .223 caliber. I'm not hard and fast on this caliber (not a pistol round)
Well its not .223, and i guess its a pistol rd maybe. Don't know any pistols that shoot it.
6a) , but I want a centerfire rifle round Yep
6b)that is relatively cheap and low recoil. Yep and Yep
7) Semi-auto preferred. Yep
8) Options other than an AR are greatly preferred. Its not a AR
To Lashlarue, No mags over 10 are allowed to be sold period. Most sites have a couple of lines in small print that say "shipped with 10rd mag, if ordering from ca". Unless of course there shipping them illegally