That is the way they are.
Beatties have a very strong fresnel with a weak focus (diffusion) layer, and as a result, they were bright, but I found them hard to get acurate focus. The result of this also means that if your eye is any distance from the nodal point of the fresnel, you get visual vignetting. Try moving your eye farther away from the WLF until you get a clear view, that should be the nodal point. Prism finders typically have the nodal point at about 1m, which is much further back that when you peer into a WLF, especially with the magnifier.