I don’t contribute much to the boards these days but I do have experience in this.
I had labrum repairs in both my shoulders (a two-third tear repair on my right in May 2009, and a half-tear repair on my left in April 2010.) I don’t know the extent of the tear in your labrum, and suffice it to say, I believe the size of the tear that was repaired has a larger effect on how much ROM you’ll get back. For instance, my right shoulder has less mobility than the left, despite having about an extra year of recovery time from surgery to present day.
I should say that I have never been VERY extremely aggressive with trying to regain pre-surgery mobility in either shoulder, however I have done a bit of work to get a decent amount. About a year after my latest surgery, I had enough mobility to comfortably get under a bar for some back squats. What I mean is, before that, not only was it tough to be able to reach my shoulders that far back, but there was also pain associated with it - kind of like a pinch in the rotator cuff.
Like kpsnap said, the 6 month mark is frustrating. You can lift - and finally feel strong again - but there is still the mobility problems, mind-muscle connection problems, stability problems, etc. However, it’s important to keep working on mobility work without being too aggressive, take your time with it and let yourself see the gains over a long-period of time… you have your WHOLE life ahead of you, and you do NOT want to sacrifice stability by working on too much mobility too quick. On top of that, I would continue to work shoulder stability for the rest of your lifting career. Now that your 6 months out, it’s not as important to be so aggressive with it but you never want to neglect it or put your shoulder back at risk for another injury. It’s no secret that it’s a notoriously injury-prone joint.
I think it’s important to note that any lift that feels painful, unstable or is notoriously risky for the joint should be avoided.
Which brings me to the bad news. Some years out from surgery nowadays, I still can’t seem to “feel” my lateral delts working on lateral shoulder raises, as I’m experiencing the same problems with that exercise as you seem to be describing. However, I still use that exercise all the time and I still have growth in the areas that it should target, albeit probably not to the same effect as someone who can “feel” it. No big deal though, there’s plenty of muscle building exercises for the shoulder that are just as effective. More bad news: I can’t barbell shoulder press comfortably and dumbell shoulder presses can feel unstable sometimes as well. It sucks, but there are ways around this, such as using high incline bench variations, which can produce similar effects to overhead exercises. Which brings me back to the point of avoiding painful, unstable-feeling or notoriously risky shoulder exercises. It sucks, but there are always ways to build the same muscles whilst avoiding said exercises.
It’s gonna take some time for you to realize and figure out which exercises you might need to avoid at this point, whether you avoid them for the next few weeks, months years or forever. Surgery sucks, but this is our situation and it’s simply something that training needs to adapt to.
Now for the good news! A lot of exercises I couldn’t do 6 months out, I could some months later. As you get further and further away from surgery, you’ll feel the joint become stronger, more stable and more mobile and you’ll be able to do more exercises than you can at this point. More good news; I had the same problems with growing the surgery-side muscles as you have now at your point. In time, you’ll gain symmetry like I have regained myself. You gotta remember man, you went through some serious atrophy on that side while you were recovering. Plus, your mind, muscles and nervous system has to sort of re-learn how to activate said muscles on your surgery-side since surgery and recovery kind of fucks up the connections you had established before hand.
In conclusion, 6 months really is not that much time for labrum repair - in the grand scheme of things. But it sounds like you are making some great progress at this point in time. Just be pateint, optimistic, learn how to adapt your training style to your current situation and continue to evaluate yourself and adapt again as time goes on and you get your problems sorted out.
I know I was kind of all over in this post, so if you want to ask any questions or ask me to clarify on anything, I’ll be sure to check this page again. Good luck brotha and train hard!!!