A couple of points: A decent scale really is a must for safety's sake. The Lee scale is perfectly fine, though I use a Lyman 505. Same goes for load manuals. Get the Lee if nothing else (I only use the Lee for most things).
Primers are not a problem with any of the neck-sizing dies. With the straight-walled pistol cases, don't tap the case out of the die at the same time you seat the primer. The cases require a lot of force to tap out of the straight-walled dies. Tap them out 1/16 or 1/32 of an inch first, then center the primer in the primer cavity by sight and touch (use goggles!). Then it taps in easily with absolutely no set off primers. Having said that, a fired primer makes a loud noise, and nothing else. The only time you will have holes in your ceiling is when you use the type of press than has primer tubes, and a tube goes off, setting off a chain reaction. Lee specifically does not use those tubes on their presses for this reason. The WORST that might happen is the priming rod might bounce a couple of INCHES, but since you are holding it tight, and the hammer's weight is on the primer, nothing is going anywhere (primer can shoot 158 grain bullet hard enough to engrave into the rifling of a revolver, but it isn't going to send 7000 grains worth of hammer and priming rod flying when you are exerting several tens of thousands of grains worth of muscle power in the opposite direction).
With bottlenecked cases, you'll probably never set off a primer by mistake (you could conceivably do it on purpose).
Finally, there's nothing all that complicated about casting plinking bullets for revolvers. Clip on wheel weights air cooled are plenty fine for what he would be doing, and they don't have to be perfect weight or perfectly filled out for plinking. I've been reloading for slightly over a year, and casting for probably about 10 months. I now shoot .38 specials for $2 per box if you don't count the startup costs. That's about a $260 per year savings for me on pistol ammo. In another year or two, my loading & casting gear will all be paid for (my lead stash is another matter, but it should last me most of my life). If I was reloading 38 special using store-bought bullets (I bought one box and it sat on the shelf till last month. I'm using them now just to get rid of them), I would have spent half what I did, but I would shoot half as much, and it would take me another two years to ammortize the cost of the reloading gear.
Sounds like he already has some casting equipment (mold, thus implies a pot). Shouldn't be that big of a leap. Buy some LLA, a set of calipers, and a mold. You should then be good to go. Also, LLA is fine to use on regular style bullets. The micro-groove bullets designed for LLA, however, cannot use traditional lube.
