AMSTERDAM — City police officers are now equipped with new, better-quality firearms, with more stopping power than the pistols they replace.

Flush with drug seizure money, the city Police Department purchased the new pistols from Swiss manufacturer SIG Sauer last October. Officers underwent training in July and now each member of the force has been issued the new weapons and is trained to use them.

“Now we’ve got something that’s comparable to what the bad guys have,” Detective Lt. Thomas DiMezza said.

Although the SIG Sauer P226 was about $100 more than similar models, Detective John DiCaprio said, the department decided to go with the more expensive weapon because it was of better quality.

“We wanted something that could be used and reused and passed down,” DiCaprio said. “We won’t be replacing this in 10 or 15 years.”

DiCaprio, who works as the department’s armorer, said the .357 SIG caliber cartridge the pistols fire also has a better penetrating ability. He said if an officer were shooting at a windshield, for example, the bullet would penetrate today’s windshields, which are built tougher, even at an angle that would normally deflect bullets.

The department decided to spend about $17,000 for new weapons after the manufacturer of the department’s old service weapon, Smith & Wesson, stopped making the .40-caliber pistol Amsterdam police carried for most of two decades.

But there were other reasons for the switch.

In the early 1990s, police departments nationwide began switching from revolvers to semiautomatic weapons, which carry more ammunition and reload faster. The Amsterdam Police Department wanted to follow suit, but there wasn’t enough city money available for the switch.

“Rather than us be left in the dark ages, we decided that the officers would buy our own so we could be like everyone else,” DiCaprio said.

Having each officer own their own gun posed many problems. The gun wasn’t transferred to an upcoming officer upon its owner’s retirement, and officers would potentially be without their weapon after a shooting, if it was impounded for an investigation. Also, it was a considerable expense for the officer to bear.

In the early 1990s, the .40-caliber Smith and Wesson was on government contract and each officer paid about $350, but by 2006, the weapon cost about $600 each.

“Before, officers owned their own weapons and that’s not a good thing for the city, I don’t think,” Deputy Chief Victor Hugo said.

Most of the Amsterdam’s police force has never used their weapons off the target range. DiCaprio said he’s been on the force for 20 years and has known of only one instance where an officer had to use his firearm in his defense.

However, the fact that officers don’t use their weapons is not an excuse for the department to be out of date, DiMezza said.

“If that theory were to hold true, we’d all still be using black powder,” DiMezza said referring, to the centuries-old ammunition phased out after the Civil War.