Half of 16 months is 8 months, and working from his original custody date of July 19, that puts his estimated release around March 19, 2017. The math is straightforward: 8 months from July 19 lands on March 19 regardless of when he arrived at Kern for reception.
The reception period at Kern is a classification and intake phase, not additional time on top of his sentence. The time he spent in county from July 19 forward all counts toward the sentence, which is why March is still the target even though he just arrived at the state facility in September.
To get the official confirmed release date, the best approach is to look him up on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation offender locator at cdcr.ca.gov once he has been fully processed into the CDCR system. His CDCR number will be assigned during reception and that number, along with the facility locator, will show his official release date as calculated by the state. That number is more precise than the rough math above and accounts for any credits or adjustments the state applies.