Material options for weapons

I know there are several options when it comes to making prop weapons such as a rifle or a pistol, but I'm trying to determine what I want to do. I have acquired a good amount of skills working with a number of tools that I have built up in my collection so I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about it. I will be building this for my mass effect suit.I know a lot of people also make the weapons for these builds out of foam but I kind of want to stick with a more dense and harder material. I'm considering wood. A lot of people also start the base from an already pre-made toy gun. I plan to make this from scratch though.. i'm just trying to look at my options

EVA foam seems to be the material of choice, but some use styrene insulation foam (check Andrew DFT on YouTube)
You can do a thin coat of resin on this to toughen it up a bit.
I suppose next up from that is MDF and LDF but if you lugging that around all day at a con you might wish you had gone for foam!

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Foamies can look really nice, and might be the smart option for larger firearms. Or fab from MDF (plus styrene, bondo, apoxie sculpt. 3d prints, found objects, lathed Delrin, etc) and then mold and resin-cast. With a slush cast you can get the weight down considerable from a solid cast.

Thing is, over the last couple decades access to materials has really opened up to the small shop. With Maker spaces of various kinds, you can get into aluminium and laser cutting and pewter casting and all that without so much of an up-front investment. Plus there are companies like Ponoko and Shapeways that, if you can provide the file, will print or cut some pieces for you.

Last thought; there might be some pepakura for the Mass Effect weapons out there. I know there are pepakura files for the armor...

I think I might be leaning towards MDF board as I've seen a lot of builds with that material and they look very nice. As far as the weight of it goes I do eventually plan on getting some sort of holster on the back of my suit to hook on. That'll be a very interesting project when the time comes but something about weapons just tell me it needs to be a harder material than the armor. Not sure why. Because I know you can make foam look absolutely great. I guess it just feels better in my hands to get that tight grip

MDF and Styrene for the highest quality, but you're looking at more time and less human friendly materials. Water can also ruin your prop. You can make it as light as a resin cast though, just be smart about it. don't layer a bunch of sheets and then cut it, swiss cheese it and hollow build parts wherever possible.

Make sure to check the weapons policy at the cons you plan to attend. Some are stricter than others. For example, Awesome Con here in DC won't allow any prop weapons that contain wood, metal or glass. Otakon, OTOH, is more lenient. They'll allow weapons made of wood or which contain metal elements as long as there's no metal blade and they meet the size limits.